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WIT AND WISDOM OF SYDNEY SMITH. 



WHEN WIT IS COMBINED WITH SENSE AND INFORMATION J WHEN IT 
IS SOFTENED BY BENEVOLENCE AND RESTRAINED BY STRONG PRINCI- 
PLE ; WHEN IT IS IN THE HAKDS OF A MAN WHO CAN USE IT AND DESPISE 
IT, WHO CAN BE WITTY AND SOMETHING MUCH BETTER THAN WITTY, 
WHO LOVES HONOUR, JUSTICE, DECENCY, GOOD-NATURE, MORALITY AND 

RELIGION, TEN THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN WIT J WIT IS THEN A 

BEAUTIFUL AND DELIGHTFUL PART OF OUR NATURE. 

SYDNEY SMITH. 



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WIT AND WISDOM 



REV. SYDNEY SMITH 



SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS 

AND PASSAGES OF HIS 

LETTERS AND TABLE-TALK 

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR AND NOTES 
By EVERT A. DUYCKINCK 







R E D P I E L D 

34 BEE KM AN STREET, NEW YORK 

18/56 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, 

By J. S. REDFIELD, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern 

District of New York. 




SAVAGE & MCCREA, STEREOTYPERS, 
13 Chambers Street, N. Y. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The chief writings of the Rev. Sydney Smith are inclu- 
ded in the original English editions in eight octavo volumes. 
These are his " Two Volumes of Sermons," 1809 ; the col- 
lection of his " Works" (embracing articles from the 
Edinburgh Review, the Plymley Letters, and other papers), 
4 vols, 1839-40 ; a posthumous volume, " Sermons preached 
at St.Paul's," &c, 1846 ; " Elementary Sketches of Moral 
Philosophy, delivered at the Royal Institution," published 
in 1850. To these are to be added " Letters on American 
Debts," 1843 ; " A Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic 
Church," 1845; "Letters on Railway Management," and 
other topics, to the Morning Chronicle ; Articles in the 
Edinburgh Review not collected in his " Works ;" numerous 
Sketches and Essays printed in the " Memoirs," by his 
daughter, Lady Holland ; and the extensive series of 
" Letters," edited by Mrs. Austin. These have mainly 
furnished the material of the present volume. In the 



6 ADVERTISEMENT. 

preparation of the Table-Talk, Memoir, and Notes, many 
collateral sources have been drawn upon. 

Several of Sydney Smith's Writings, will here be found 
given entire ; while the selection generally presents the 
most characteristic passages of his " Wit and Wisdom" 
from the whole. Numerous Miscellanies of much interest, 
are included which are not to be met with in any previous 
American collection of the author's works. 

New York, May 20, 1856. 



CONTENTS. 



BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR PAGE 9 

PASSAGES FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW 107 

SKETCHES OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 195 

PASSAGES FROM SERMONS 256 

ESSAYS AND SKETCHES 278 

PASSAGES FROM PETER PLYMLEY LETTERS . 297 

REFORM SPEECHES 314 

LETTERS TO ARCHDEACON SINGLETON 329 

LETTERS ON RAILWAYS 344 

LETTERS ON AMERICAN DEBTS 353 

A FRAGMENT ON THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH .... 363 
LETTER ON THE CHARACTER OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH .... 379 

RECOLLECTIONS OF FRANCIS HORNER 387 

PASSAGES FROM LETTERS . . 392 

TABLE TALK ANECDOTES . . 417 



BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 

Sydney Smith* was born at Woodford, Essex, in the vicin- 
ity of London, June 3, 1771, of a respectable family in the mid- 
dle class of English society. His parents, as will commonly be 
found with the immediate ancestors of those who have risen to 
eminence in the world, were persons of marked character. Rob- 
ert Smith, the father, was a man of curious talents and impulses, 
with a passion for foreign travel, and a mania, not a little destruc- 
tive to his finances, for building and altering country-houses in vari- 
ous parts of England. He married a lady of beauty and accom- 
plishments, Miss Olier, of Huguenot birth, her father having been 
one of the refugees driven to England in the great expatriation 
consequent on the bigoted tyranny of Louis XIY. This infusion 
of French blood was afterward called to mind to account for 
certain peculiarities of disposition, the humours and the mercurial 
vivacity, associated with strength of purpose, of their son, the 
subject of the present memoir. 

* The union of the honourable name of Sydney with the generic patro- 
nymic Smith, which has been illustrated by several distinguished personages, 
would appear to have been adopted in this extensive family from the mar- 
riage, in the seventeenth century, of Sir Thomas Smythe, created Viscount 
Strangford, with a niece of Sir Philip Sydney. It was one of the jests and 
humours of the Rev. Sydney Smith's life, to confound himself and be con- 
founded with Ins contemporary, the British admiral, Sir Sidney Smith. 
George Sydney Smythe, the member of the short-lived Young England party 
who published a volumes of poems, ''Historic Fancies/' is another instance 
of the association of these names. 

|* 



10 FAMILY HISTORY. 

Five children were the fruit of the marriage, four sons and a 
daughter : all of them, we are told, " remarkable for their tal- 
ents."* 

The eldest of the family, one year the senior of his brother 
Sydney, was Eobert, known amongst his contemporaries in the 
London society of wits and statesmen, from a familiar handling of 
his Christian name at school, as Bobus Smith. Educated at Eton, 
he there, at the age of eighteen, was associated with the future 
statesman George Canning, and the fastidious, fine poet, and fin- 
ished classical scholar of after life, John Hookham Frere, in the 
composition of the Microcosm. This periodical, of the prolific 
family of the Spectator, appeared in forty weekly numbers be- 

* Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, by his daughter, Lady Holland, 
Am. ed. p. 13. "We take the first opportunity to notice the sentiment, pro- 
priety, and faithfulness which characterize this filial work. It furnishes ample 
materials for a knowledge of the man, particularly in his domestic and social 
relations. The development of his fortunes and j)osition in the world is of 
especial biographical value. 

Immediately after the death of Sydney Smith, the material for the Memoir 
was begun to be collected by his widow, who was about intrusting the work 
to the poet Moore, when his broken health defeated the plan. Mrs. Sydney 
then requested her friend Mrs. Sarah Austin, the accomplished German trans- 
lator, to undertake the narrative and edit the Letters which had been brought 
together. Ill health limited Mrs. Austin's subsequent performance of the 
work to the Selection from the Correspondence which constitutes the second 
volume of the Memoirs. 

Much as the genius of the biographer of Sheridan and Byron is to be re- 
spected, and with every consideration of the feeling with which he would 
have entered on the " life," in its political, social, and personal aspects, it is a 
matter for congratulation that the Memoirs have fallen into female hands. Wo- 
man alone could have interpreted so gracefully and truly the kindly virtues of 
the man. His keen, consistent, brilliant writings need no particular exhibi- 
tion of his political and public life. They speak for themselves. Mrs. 
Austin, in her preface finds another appropriate reason for the participation 
of the sex in the work : in gratitude for what Sydney Smith had accom- 
plished, by his arguments, for female education. " Within our times," she 
remarks, " no man has done so much to obtain for women toleration for the 
exercise of their understandings, and for the culture of their talents, as 
Sydney Smith." Mrs. Jameson, in her " Ethical Fragments," makes a similar 
acknowledgment : " See what he has done for humanity, for society, for lib- 
erty, for truth — for us women !" 



BOBUS SMITH. 11 

tween November, 1786, and July of the following year. Nine 
of its papers, chiefly grave studies of history or serious reflections, 
are set down to Robert Smith. He was, also, joint author with 
Canning, of one of the essays. Leaving Eton, he became a 
student of King's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished 
himself by the excellence of his Latin verses, amongst which 
were some admired compositions after the manner of Lucretius on 
the systems of Plato, Descartes and Newton.* He received his 
degree of Master of Arts, in 1797, and was the same year called 
to the bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. It was 
also the year of his marriage to Miss Caroline Yernon, daughter 
of Richard Yernon and Lady Ossory, aunt of Lord Lansdowne. 
The ceremony was performed by Sydney Smith, then a needy 

* A number of Robert Smith's Latin compositions are preserved in the 
Musce Etonenses, where we find this elegant Latin version of the exquisite 

Danae of Simonides. 

EX SIMONIDE. 

" Ventus quum fremeret, superque cymbam 
Horrentis furor immineret undse, 
Non siccis Danae genis puellum 
Circumfusa suum, ' Miselle/ dixit, 
1 qua3 sustineo ! sopore dulci 
Dum tu solveris, insciaque dormis 
Securus requie ; neque has per undas 
Illaitabile, luce sub maligna, 
Formidas iter ; impetumque fluctus 
Supra caesariem tuam profundam 
Nil curas salientis (ipse molli 
Porrectus tunica, vcnustus infans) 
Nee venti fremitum. Sed o miselle, 
Si mccum poteras dolerc, saltern 
Junxisses lacrymas meia querelis. 
Dormi, carepuer! gravesque fluctus, 
Dormitc ! o utinam mei Dolores 
Dormirent simul ! o Pater Deorum, 
Cassum hoe consilium sit ct quod ultra 
(Forte audaeius) oro, tu parentis 
Cltorem puerum, supreme, serves." 

Some fine and eloquent Latin lines on Death, found in his desk, after his 
decease, are printed in Lady Holland's Memoir. 



12 BOBUS SMITH. 

young curate, who wrote in a letter to his mother : " The mar- 
riage took place in the library at Bowood, and all I can tell you 
of it is, that he cried, she cried, and I cried/'* This alliance was 
afterward of use in the introduction of Sydney to the leading 
whig families. 

Robert became highly esteemed as a barrister, and was sent to 
India with the profitable appointment of Advocate- General of 
Bengal. Eight years of official duty, performed to the admiration 
of the natives, secured to him a considerable fortune,! with which 
he returned to London, in 1812. He soon after entered the 
House of Commons, as member for Grantham ; but, notwithstand- 
ing his acute argumentative turn is said to have failed in his 
maiden speech. J He spoke seldom and briefly afterward, during 
his extended parliamentary career ; while his talents were exerted 
as a valuable business member of committees. In 1818, he con- 
tested, unsuccessfully, the city of Lincoln ; but carried that place 
in the election of 1820, finally, retiring from Parliament at the 
dissolution in 1826. The concluding period of his life was passed 
in lettered and social ease and in retirement. His sympathies 
were intimately associated with those of his brother Sydney. 
The death of one followed closely that of the other. Robert sur- 
vived the canon of St. Paul's but a fortnight. Thirty ^ears 

=* Lady Holland's Memoir, 4th Eng. ed., p. 14. 

t His personal estate was sworn, at his death, in 1845, as not exceeding 
£180,000. 

| De Quincey his a curious reminiscence of this circumstance in his Essay 
on Dr. Parr, to be found at page 137 of vol. II., of " Essays on Philosophi- 
cal Writers and other Men of Letters/' published by Ticknor and Eields. 
Sydney Smith, who wrote of his brother Robert about this time, as "a, capi- 
tal personage ; full of sense, genius, dignity, virtue, and wit," addressed to 
him, in his manly, courageous way, a felicitous letter on this subject, in 
which personal chagrin and disappointment are smothered under kindness, 
and a genuine solicitude. "Whether," he writes, "you turn out a consum- 
mate orator or not, will neither increase nor diminish my admiration for your 
talents, or my respect for your character ; but when a man is strong, it is 
pleasant to make that strength respected ; and you will be happier for it, if 
you can do so, as I have no doubt you will soon." (Letter 93 in Mrs. 
Austin's Collection, March 17, 1813.) 



BOBUS SMITH. 13 

before, when the former had been attacked by a serious illness, 
Sydney wrote to him, " Dear Bobus, pray take care of yourself. 
We shall both be a brown infragrant powder in thirty or forty 
years. Let us contrive to last out for the same, or nearly the 
same time. Weary will, the latter half of my pilgrimage be, if 
you leave me in the lurch."* 

Robert was a man of high honour and integrity. Those who 
knew him intimately spoke in strong terms of his wit and powers 
of mind. Moore tells us, in his Diary, of his agreeable qualities, 
and of his being ranked, in his best time, by some people, superior 
to Sydney.f The remark is not unusual in such cases. Friend- 
ship readily exaggerates a question of capacity ; but the execution 
must decide. As the ability to succeed with the public in exhibi- 
tions of mental power generally brings the desire along with it, it 
may, in most instances be taken for granted — certainly with the 
healthiest of developments — that all is claimed from the world 
which can be enforced. There is sometimes, perhaps, in imputing 
these extraordinary merits to the less-known brothers of eminent 
authors a compensation to self-love for the honours which are 
grudgingly paid to acknowledged attainments. 

The testimonies, however, to the intellectual strength and charm 
of polished conversation of Robert Smith are not to be discredited. 
Dr. Parr bestowed upon him, while both were living, a Latin 
inscription, in his famous lapidary style, written in the presentation 
copy of a book. He commended his fertile and skilful Latinity ; 
his strong, manly, vehement mode of pleading, free from captious- 
ness or cunning, and, when the occasion demanded, even magnificent 
and splendid ; his integrity and humanity in the regulation of life ; 
his greatness of mind in public affairs.J Sir James Mackintosh 

* Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 361. 

t Diary, March 13, 1833. 

} The inscription is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1845, 
p. 441. Dr. Parr, in the enumeration of college worthies, in a note to his 
Spital Sermon, pays this compliment to Robert Smith, nj axpifeia, xal deivorfjTt, 
Km pzydXo-ptTTzH evdoKipovi'Tos, — (Parr's Works, ii. 543.) 



14 BOBUS SMITH. 

bears witness, in his Diary, to the eclat of his legal career in 
India, and to his social qualities. " His fame," he records, " among 
the natives is greater than that of any pundit since the days of 
Menu;" and again: "I hear from Bobus ; always merry and 
always kind. Long live Bobus !" The sincere strength of ex- 
pression of his conversation was held in esteem. " Bobus's lan- 
guage," said Canning, " is the essence of English." His old friend. 
Lord Carlisle, remarks, in a careful memorial in the Gentleman's 
Magazine : " There was much in him of the sturdy Saxon, com- 
bined with the refined and thoroughly finished scholar. No one was 
ever so clear of all frippery, and the only thing for which he prob- 
ably felt no toleration, was a prig."* Rogers, the poet and fas- 
tidious critic of society, pronounced Sir James Mackintosh, Mal- 
thus, and Bobus Smith, the three acutest men with whom he was 
ever acquainted-! The sound mind was enclosed in a fair body, 
as we learn from a pleasant anecdote related by Lady Holland. 
" When Talleyrand," she writes, " was an emigrant in England, 
he was on very intimate terms with Robert Smith. The conver- 
sation turned on the beauty often transmitted from parents to their 
children. My uncle, who was singularly handsome (indeed, I 
think I have seldom seen a finer specimen of manly beauty, or a 
countenance more expressive of the high moral qualities he pos- 
sessed), perhaps, with a little youthful vanity, spoke of the great 
beauty of his mother, on which Talleyrand, with a shrug and a 
sly disparaging look at his fine face, as if he saw nothing to 
admire, exclaimed, ' Ah, mon ami, c'etait done apparemment mon- 
sieur votre pere qui n'etait pas bien.' " 

The younger brothers of Sydney were Cecil and Courtenay. 
The former was educated with Robert at Eton, the latter with 
Sydney at Winchester. Both were fitted out for India. Cour- 
tenay gained distinction there in the Judiciary as Supreme Judge 
of the Adawlut Court at Calcutta. He was also a good oriental 

=* Obituary, Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1845. 



BOYHOOD. 15 

scholar. Having accumulated a large fortune, he returned to Eng- 
land late in life and died suddenly in London, in 1843, at the age 
of sixty-nine. 

Maria, the only sister lived unmarried. She died in 1816 at 
her father's residence at Bath. Delicate in constitution, ill health 
did not obscure the good temper and amiability of her disposition. 
Her brother Sydney spoke of her as one whom he would have 
cultivated as a friend, if nature had not given her to him as a 
relative. 

Robert Smith, the father, lived to an advanced age. His son 
Sydney, visited him, at his residence at Bishop's Lydiard in Somer- 
setshire, in 1821. A letter to Jeffrey has this picture of the old 
man : — "I have travelled all across the country with my family, 
to see my father, now eighty-two years of age. I wish, at such an 
age, you, and all like you, may have as much enjoyment of life ; 
more, you can hardly have at any age. My father is one of the 
very few people I have ever seen improved by age. He is be- 
come careless, indulgent, and anacreontic." 

The mother of Sydney Smith died many years earlier at the 
beginning of the century. In feeble health, she devoted herself, in 
the absence of her husband, to the care of her children ; wrote 
letters to her sons at Winchester which the school-boys " gathered 
round to hear read aloud ;" lived to see Robert and Sydney married, 
and left to her descendants a pathetic memory of her grace, and 
virtues. 

The boyhood of Sydney Smith was passed at school at South- 
ampton and Winchester. At the celebrated foundation of William 
of Wykeham he acquired a good classical education and became 
the leader of the school, entitling himself by his position to a 
scholarship and afterward a fellowship at New College, Oxford. 
But though he was thus indebted to Winchester for an early and 
important move in life, his impression of the habits and conduct of 
the place fastened upon him a permanent dislike to that boasted 
institution of learning and manliness, the English public school. 



16 WINCHESTEE SCHOOL. 

Years after, in an article in the Edinburgh Review, he wrote 
against the cruel and oppressive system of fagging pursued hi such 
places ; the false notion of hardening youth by exposing it to 
privations which were positive evils, under plea of inuring to hard- 
ships which there was little probability of meeting in after-life ; 
the heartless exposure to premature vice and the almost inevitable 
neglect of instruction, with so great a number of pupils.* As 
captain of the school, Sydney was of course an adept in the 
composition of Latin verses, one of the chief benefits of which was 
the inexhaustible subject of ridicule it afforded to him through life. 
The brothers Sydney and Courtenay were such proficients at Win- 
chester, that a round robin was sent up by the pupils to the effect 
that it was useless to contend for the prizes as the Smiths always 
gained them. Another anecdote places the young Sydney in a 
picturesque light. A visiter of distinction came to the school and 
found him reading Virgil under a tree while Ins schoolfellows 

=* Though learning and academic honours seem readily to have been ac- 
quired at these institutions by the members of the Smith family, their personal 
experience was by no means favourable. " Even in old age," says his daughter 
of her father Sydney, " I have heard him speak with horrour of the'misery of 
the years he spent at Winchester. He suffered there many years of misery 
and positive starvation." Courtenay was compelled by ill usage to run away 
twice from the same school. At a later day Sydney's son Douglas became 
King's scholar at Westminster. When he was sent to the school in 1820 his 
father writes to a lady correspondent: "Douglas is gone to school; not with 
a light heart, for the first year of Westminster in College is severe — an in- 
tense system of tyranny, of which the English are very fond, "and think it fits 
a boy for the world ; but the world, bad as it is, has nothing half so bad." 
" The hardships and cruelties Douglas suffered as a junior boy from his 
master," his mother tells us, "were such as at one time very nearly to compel 
us to remove him from the school. He was taken home for a short period, to 
recover from his bruises and restore his eye. His first act, on becoming 
captain himself, was to endeavour to ameliorate the condition of the juniors, 
and to obtain additional comforts for them from the head master." 

Rogers tells us in illustration of the system (Dyce's Table Talk) that 
" when Lord Holland was a school-boy, he was forced, as a fag, to toast bread 
with his fingers for the breakfast of another boy. Lord H.'s mother sent him 
a toasting-fork. His fagger broke it over his head, and still compelled him 
to prepare the toast in the old way. In consequence of this his fingers suf- 
fered so much that they always retained a withered appearance." 



COLLEGE CAREER. 17 

were at play. He took the book from the boy's hand, patted his 
head, uttered the words : " Clever boy ! clever boy ! that is the 
way to conquer the world," and clinched the encouraging aphorism 
with the gift of a shilling. The encomium and prophecy are said 
to have produced a strong impression on the youthful scholar.* 

A brief interval was passed by Sydney between Winchester and 
Oxford. He was for six months in a boarding-school in France, 
at Mont Villiers in Normandy, where he acquired a familiar know- 
ledge of the language, which he ever afterward retained, and saw 
something of the troubled scenes of the French Revolution. Plain 
Sydney, for obvious prudential reasons, became "Le Citoyen 
Smit" affiliated member of the Club of Jacobins of Mont Villiers. 
At New College, Oxford, his career, of which little has been told 
the public, was one of industry and its rewards. He was safe, 
in his constitutional temperance and sense of independence, from 
the usual temptations to dissipation and expense. He received 
his degree of Bachelor of Arts, Oct. 10, 1792, and that of Master 
of Arts exactly four year^ later. He secured his fellowship at the 
earliest moment, with its perquisite of a hundred pounds a year, 
out of which he manned to support himself and magnanimously 
pay f a debPftfcthirty pounds which his brother Courtenay had con- 
tracted at Westminster school. 

The world was now before Sydney for the choice of a profession. 
His father at one time meditated sending him in the track of his 
brothers to the East, in the mercantile line as supercargo to 
China ; the youth himself naturally thought of carrying his powers 
of mind, well suited to the profession, to the bar ; his father settled 
the matter by choosing for him the church. Sydney, who was a 
practical optimist, acquiesced and was installed in 1794 as a humble 
curate in the parish of Netheravon near Amesbury in the middle 
of Salisbury Plain. His parochial domain was limited to a few 
cottagers and farmers, relieved by the Sunday dinner with the 
parish squire, Mr. Hicks Beach, who fortunately apprehended 
* Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 19. 



18 PUTS INTO EDINBURGH. 

the sagacity and education of his visiter, " took a fancy " to him, 
and at the close of a second year engaged him as teacher to his 
eldest son.* A course at the university of Weimar was deter- 
mined upon ; but the wars of the continent put an end to the plan : 
and, " in stress of politics," as Sydney Smith himself has related, 
"he put into Edinburgh." This was in 1797. 

The incidents of Sydney Smith's domestic life with his pupil a1 
Edinburgh are happily related in his correspondence with the 
family of Mr. Beach, f He took lodgings in an excellent quartei 
of the town and kept up a bachelor's establishment with his pupi] 
Michael and a German courier, Mithoffer, the companion of the 
journey. All sorts of domestic difficulties were encountered. He 
conquered the susceptibility of his housemaid and kept her in his 
service, safe from the attacks of " seven sweethearts ;" went te 
market himself till Mithoffer became a better "judge of meat;' 
failed lamentably in a joint attempt with cook and courier t( 
" make a pie ;" laid in beef in the salting tub and " looked into th( 
family affairs like a fat old lady of forty." At the coming on of 
winter the female owner of the premises attempted to raise th( 
rent. Sydney resisted the imposition and held his ^ound notwith 
standing the landlady called him " a Levite, a scourge of humai 
nature and an extortioner," and ordered him out " instantly, ba£ 
and baggage, without beat of drum or colours flying." 

Judging from the candid reports sent home, which by no mean! 
exhibit the usual flattery of such relations, Sydney Smith was i 

* Mr. Hicks Beach at one time represented Cirencester in Parliament 
Cobbett, in his Rural Rides in the Counties of England, gives an account of s 
visit in 1826 to Netheravon. He speaks of the valley of the Avon in whicl 
the village is situated as of great beauty — and the population as having de 
teriorated. " There is a church, large enough to hold a thousand or two oi 
people, and the whole parish contains only three hundred and fifty souls 
men, women, and children. This Netheravon was formerly a great lordship 
and in the parish there were three considerable mansion-houses, besides th< 
one near the church." 

t The letters of Sydney Smith, chiefly addressed to Mrs. Beach appear ii 
the later English editions of Lady Holland's Memoir. 



EXCURSION TO THE HIGHLANDS. 19 

faithful guardian. While he stimulated mental exertion and 
exacted personal respect he was, no doubt, a very agreeable one. 
His admirable art of conveying information, must have made in- 
struction very much a pastime. The tuition was moreover relieved 
by summer excursions in the Highlands and "Wales, and winter ad- 
vances into the attractive circles of Edinburgh society. 

A passage of the Highland experiences is characteristic in 
its double consciousness of sublimity and inconvenience. " He 
knows not the earth," Sydney writes, " who has only seen it swell- 
ing into the moderate elevation, or sinking to the gentle descent of 
southern hills and valleys. He has never trod on the margin of 
the fearful precipice, journeyed over the silent wilderness, and 
gazed at the torrent hiding itself in the profound glen. He has 
never viewed Nature but as she is associated with human indus- 
try ; and is unacquainted with large tracts of the earth from which 
the care of man can hope for no return ; which seem never to 
have been quickened with the principle of vegetation, or to have 
participated in the bounties of Him whose providence is over all. 
This we have seen in the Highlands ; but we have mortified the 
body in gratifying the mind. We have been forced to associate 
oat-cakes and whiskey with rocks and waterfalls, and humble' in a 
dirty room the conceptions we indulged in a romantic glen." 

Edinburgh society was then on the verge of a new intellectual 
development. It was rich in honour and promise. Taking the 
year of Sydney Smith's arrival for a glance at its celebrities, we 
find Jeffrey, his future intimate and associate in friendship and 
letters, at the age of twenty-four, recently entered at the bar, fresh 
from his energetic, youthful studies, and the invigorating, mental 
exercises of the Speculative Society. Brougham, a young man, 
just entered at the Speculative, was laying the foundation of his 
great public career. Walter Scott, the mention of whose name 
gives a glow to the time, was twenty-six, an advocate — his head 
filled with as yd undeveloped studies of romantic history, which 
was all living reality in the heart of the young lover at the {'cci of 



20 EDINBURGH SOCIETY. 

the future Lady Scott. Francis Horner, one of the youngest 
members of the whig circle of the town, destined to become honour- 
ably distinguished in a brief, public career, was that year absent 
from his native place, polishing off in England the asperities of his 
native dialect. Sydney Smith, attracted to him by his personal 
worth and liberal politics, sought his acquaintance on his return, 
and formed a noble friendship interrupted only by death. John 
Allen who, not long after, was recommended by Sydney Smith 
to Lord Holland as his travelling-companion in Spain, whose his- 
torical studies and personal qualities secured for him a forty 
years' residence at Holland House, was a physician and reform 
politician, at the age of twenty-seven; highly distinguished for 
his Edinburgh Lectures on the Animal Economy.* Lord Webb 
Seymour, brother of the Duke of Somerset, attracted by the oppor- 
tunities of study afforded by the University, came from Christ 
Church, Oxford, to Edinburgh about the same time. He was then 
at the age of twenty, a young man of singular worth of character, 
and distinguished by conscientious application to the mathematical 
and metaphysical sciences, which, had he possessed more vivacious 
powers of mind, would have doubtless produced some lasting lite- 
rary monument for the world. Before he had completed the 
studies, which, indeed, would have been life long with one of his 
tastes and temper, he fell into ill health and died at Edinburgh, 

* Alien, who frequently figures in the Sydney Smith Letters, was one of 
those useful students whose conversation is more productive to the world 
than their writings. He assisted Lord Holland in his historical speeches, and 
was a great authority at Holland House on matters of physical and moral 
science, politics and metaphysics. Lord Brougham, in his " British States- 
men," speaks of his " combination of general views with details of fact," with 
warm admiration. He published an article in the Edinburgh Beview for 
June, 1816, on the Constitution of Parliament, which was highly spoken of 
by Mackintosh. He wrote the Life of Fox in the Encyclopaedia Britannica; 
" An Inquiry into the Bise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in Eng- 
land," " A Vindication of the Independence of Scotland," and a reply to 
Lingard, whose history he had reviewed in the Edinburgh. He was made 
Master of Dulwich College. He died in 1843, at the age of seventy-three, 
leaving property of about seven or eight thousand pounds. 



EDINBURGH SOCIETY. 21 

which he had continued to make his home, at the age of forty-two, 
in 1819. He was the intimate friend of Horner, and an important 
member of the youthful society from England which had then 
gathered in the Scottish metropolis.* Dugald Stewart was at that 
time in the full enjoyment of his great reputation, at once popular 
and profound, in his lectures and books, at the University and 
with the public. Thomas Brown, his successor in the chair of 
Moral Philosophy, uniting much of the poetical with more of the 
philosophic mind, was a keen, sensitive youth of twenty, already 
becoming distinguished by his scientific attainments. Smith after- 
ward recalled the Sunday dinner in Edinburgh with this intimate 
friend ; and added the eulogy : " He was a Lake-poet, a profound 
metaphysician, and one of the most virtuous men that ever 
lived."f John Murray, afterward Lord Murray, eminent in politi- 
cal and judicial life, was one of the early esteemed companions of 
Sydney Smith ; a, friendship which lasted to the end. John Thom- 
son, subsequently known to the world as one of the most learned 
physicians of his day, was also on Sydney's select list of intimates. 
Another early acquaintance was Charles Hope, afterward Lord 
President of the Court of Session, whose judicial eloquence and 
weight of character are celebrated in the eulogy of Lockhart.J 
The sweet, Scottish poet, and zealous oriental scholar, John Ley- 
den, remarkable in the annals of self-educated men, had come up 
to Edinburgh from the wilds of Roxburghshire, was detected by 
Scott as a poet, appreciated by Smith, and not long after liberally 
aided out of the narrow income of the latter, with a handsome con- 
tribution of forty pounds to his outfit for India. There he per- 
ished, a devotee to science, leaving a few verses, still admired, as 
the Ode to an Indian Gold Coin, the memorial of his toil and sen- 

* Biographical notice of Lord Webb Seymour, by Henry Ilallam, in the 
Appendix to vol. i. of the Memoirs of Horner; a carefully-elaborated com- 
position which Lord Coekburn, in his Life of Jeffrey, characterizes as " one 
of the best portraits of a character In writing that exists." 

t Letter to Sir George Philips, Feb. 28, 1836. 

| Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, ii. 102. 



22 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 

sibility. It was at this season, too, that Thomas Campbell, having 
established himself in Edinburgh the year of Smith's arrival, pub- 
lished, in 1799, the first edition of his Pleasures of Hope, a lite- 
rary advent of mark in the annals of that metropolis. We do not 
hear of any particular intimacy at the time between Campbell and 
Smith, but they must have been well acquainted. In a list of the 
Friday Club which grew up at Edinburgh, about the time Smith 
left for London, both his name and Campbell's are among the 
members.* When Campbell went to London, Sydney Smith did 
him some " kind offices," and in later life they met on pleasant 
terms as brother wits.f Amongst the older members of the soci- 
ety, Playfair, Professor of Mathematics at the University was in 
the maturity of his powers, ripening at the close of middle life. Of 
an elder generation, Dr. Hugh Blair, an octogenarian, was ap- 
proaching the term of his prolonged career. Henry Mackenzie, 
whose extended existence brought down almost to the present day 
the literary association of a century ago, was then warm in the es- 

* Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey, i. 119. 

t Campbell, in a letter, Jan. 1808 (Beattie's Life and Letters of Campbell, 
i. 485), says : " Off I marched [from his first dinner at Holland House] with 
Sydney Smith; Sydney is an excellent subject — but he too has done me 
some hind offices, and that is enough to produce a most green-eyed jealousy 
in my noble and heroic disposition ! I was determined I should make as 
many good jokes, and speak as much as himself; and so I did, for though I 
was dressed at the dinner-table much like a barber's clerk, I arrogated greatly, 
talked quizzically, metaphorically; Sydney said a few good things, I said 
many ! Saul slew his thousands, David his tens of thousands/' Thirty 
years later, when Campbell was sixty, there is an entry in his Diary of a 
street rencontre with Sydney Smith, a passing glimpse of these venerable 
wits: — "June 16, 1838 — I met Sydney Smith the other day. 'Campbell/ 
he said, 'we met last, two years ago, in Fleet street; and, as you may re- 
member, we got into a violent argument, but were separated by a wagon, 
and have never met since. Let us have out that argument now. Do you 
recollect the subject ^ 'No/ I said; 'I have clean forgotten the subject; 
but I remember that I was in the right and that you were violent and in the 
wrong !' I had scarcely uttered these words when a violent shower came on. 
I took refuge in a shop, and he in a cab. He parted with a proud threat that 
he would renew the argument the next time we met. ' Very w.ell/ J ; aid ; 
' but you sha'n't get off again, either in a wagon or a cab/ " 



MARRIAGE. 23 

teem of a new generation of the admirers of the Man of Feeling 
and Julia de Roubigne. He was a genial, bustling man, who put 
his melancholy in his books and gave his mirth to his friends. 

Such was the society into which the young Sydney Smith was 
introduced — a society abounding in intellectual activity, living on 
its acquired honours in British literature, teeming with elements of 
further progress. It was remarked that, in after-life, while the 
genial humourist indulged his wit freely — after the example of 
Dr. Samuel Johnson — at the expense of Scottish characteristics 
of manners and conversation, and the peculiarities of some of his 
intimates, he looked back upon this time with respect and affection. 
It is at least a proof that he had been well received. His pov- 
erty, united with his susceptible nature, might readily have made 
him sensitive in the matter. 

He passed five years at Edinburgh, at the end of the second 
making a short visit to London, to marry a lady to whom he had 
been engaged some time before, Miss Catherine Amelia Pybus, 
an intimate friend of his sister. The connection was a most 
happy one, enduring through nearly half a century, supported 
by many virtues and felicities. It may be mentioned, for the 
consolation of those who enter upon married life under similar 
difficulties, that this union, though approved of by the lady's 
mother, was violently opposed by her brother, Mr. Charles Pybus, 
a member of Parliament, and commissioner of the treasury in 
Pitt's administration.* A poor curate, the tutor to the son of a 

*■ Charles Small Pybus acquired some literary notoriety at the beginning 
of the century, from the publication (in 1800) of a peculiarly ill-timed poem, 
entitled " The Sovereign ; Addressed to his Imperial Majesty Paul, Emperor 
of all the Russias." It was a eulogy of the Emperor as a member of the 
coalition against France; but, unhappily, at the time of publication, Paul 
broke off from the alliance, and appeared in all his hideous insanity to the 
English public. Mr. Pybus' mode of publication, too, was unfortunate. 
He issued his flat heroic couplets in a folio of sixty pages, with his own por- 
trait prefixed — at the price of a guinea. The Gentleman's Magazine (Sep- 
tember, 1800) gave it a brief and significant notice: " Unfortunate experi- 
ence has shown, that the subject of this poem was unhappily chosen. What 



24 CHARLES SMALL PYBUS. 

country squire, was probably no very lofty object in the consid- 
eration of a family alliance. Mr. Pybus did not see the poten- 
tialities of the future Edinburgh Reviewer, popular London 
preacher, caustic political essayist, brilliant wit of Holland House, 
canon of St. Paul's, who might have had a bishopric, but who 
could not fail, as an author, of being read and admired wherever 
the English literature of the nineteenth century was known. It 
is not to the credit of Mr. Pybus, once Lord of the Admiralty, 
that he failed to set greater store by what was more immediately 
within his view, the generous, warm-hearted soul of his brother- 
in-law. 

His wife brought Sydney a small property, which he honourably 

can we say more on this delicate subject V The " Sovereign" was squibbed 
in a travesty, " The Mince Pye, an Heroic Epistle/' in 4to. (Monthly Review 
xxxiv., 421 ) . Porson reviewed " The Sovereign" in a pungent critique in the 
Monthly Review (xxxiii., 378, December, 1800): "The happy alliteration 
resulting from the title, 'A Poem to Paul by the Poet Pybus/ reminds us of 
a Latin work, entitled, ' Pugna porcorum per Publium Porcium, poetam.' 
Though this work is addressed to the Emperor Paul, it is, with inimitable 
dexterity, dedicated to our own king." On first looking into this magnificent 
production, Porson (Kidd's Tracts and Miscellaneous Criticisms, quoted in 
Barker's Lit. Anecdotes) is said to have sung : — 

And when the pie was opened, 

The birds began to sing, 
And is not this a dainty dish 
To set before the King V 
Pybus has also a share in an epigram by Porson, of which three more or 
less correct versions are given, in Notes and Queries (xi., 263, xii., 53). 
The best is that in Dyce's Porsoniana : — 

Poetis nos Icetamur tribus, 

Pye, Petro Pindar, parvo Pybus : 

Si ulterius ire pergis, 

A6.de. his Sir James Bland Burges. 

Pye was the well-known laureate before Southey. His Alfred ; an Epic 
Poem, in six books, is now almost forgotten. Burges wrote The Birth and 
Triumph of Love, and Richard the First, an Epic, the tenth book of which, 
Byron asserted he had read at Malta, in the lining of a trunk. "If any one 
doubts it," he added, " I shall buy a portmanteau to quote from." Burges 
had a share in another Epic, The Exodiad, written in association with the 
dramatist Cumberland. 

Pybus died unmarried, in 1810, at the age of forty-four. 



PROJECTS THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 25 

secured to her and his children; his own contribution to the 
family settlement being six small, well-worn silver teaspoons. 
Throwing these into his wife's lap, he exclaimed, in his riotous 
fun, " There, Kate, you lucky girl, I give you all my fortune !" 
He had, however, his profession to look to ; while his friend, Mr. 
Beach, of whose second son he had now charge, made him a 
liberal payment of seven hundred and fifty pounds.* That his 
talents in the pulpit at this period gave him strong claims to 
attention is witnessed by a passage in the journal of Francis 
Horner, who tells us, that after passing the forenoon of April 26, 
1801, with Lord Webb, in a five-hours' study of Bacon's De Aug- 
mentis Scientiarum, the two friends "went afterward to hear 
Sydney Smith preach, who delivered a most admirable sermon on 
the true religion of practical justice and benevolence, as distin- 
guished from ceremonial devotion, from fanaticism, and from the- 
ology. It was forcibly distinguished by that liberality of senti- 
ment, and that boldness of eloquence, which do so much credit to 
Smith's talents. I may add, that the popularity of his style does 
equal honour to the audience to whom it is addressed, or, at least, 
to that diffusion of liberal opinions and knowledge, to which the 
members of so mixed an audience are indebted for the fashion and 
temper of their sentiments. "f 

The great event of Sydney Smith's northern residence was 
the commencement of the Edinburgh Review. He has given so 
graphic an account of this, in his peculiar manner, in the Preface 
to his collected writings, that his biographers will generally be 
compelled to repeat the passage : — 

" The principles of the French Revolution were then fully 
afloat, and it is impossible to conceive a more violent and agitated 
state of society. Among the first persons with whom I became 
acquainted were, Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray (late Lord- Advocate 
for Scotland), and Lord Brougham; all of them maintaining 

* Lady Holland's Memoir, fourth Eng. ed. i., 52. 
t Memoir and Correspondence of Francis Horner i., 157. 

2 



2b ASSOCIATES IN THE REVIEW. 

opinions upon political subjects a little too liberal for the dynasty 
of Dundas, then exercising supreme power over the northern 
division of the island. 

" One day we happened to meet in the eighth or ninth story or flat 
in Buccleugh-place, the elevated residence of the then Mr. Jeffrey. 
I proposed that we should set up a Review ; this was acceded to 
with acclamation. I was appointed editor, and remained long 
enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the Edinburgh 
Review. The motto I proposed for the review was, 

" ' Tenui mitsam meditamur avena.' 
" ' We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal/ 

But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took our 
present grave motto from Publius Syrns, of whom none of us had, 
I am sure, ever read a single line ; and so began what has since 
turned out to be a very important and able journal."* 

Jeffrey wrote a more circumstantial account of the origin of the 
leview, in a letter to Mr. Robert Chambers, which corroborates 
this statement. It was not, however, quite the extempore under- 
taking which might be inferred from the language in which Sydney 
Smith lightly speaks of his apparently off-hand proposition. There 
were " serious consultations" about it, we are told by Jeffrey, which 
"were attended by Sydney Smith, Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, 
Lord Murray, and some of them, also by Lord Webb Seymour, 
Dr. John Thomson and Thomas Thomson." Smith and Jeffrey 
were the leaders of the set ; they had the best capacity for, and 
took the largest share in, the enterprise, and it was probably due 
to the superior hopefulness of the former, united with his consti- 
tutional energy, that the work was undertaken at all. Jeffrey, 
whose habit of mind was to be, as his biographer, Lord Cockburn, 
has given the description, " generally in a state of lively, argu- 
mentative despair," croaked dismally over the affair, before the 

* Preface to Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith. Longmans, 1839. 



JEFFREY. 27 

first number was out of the press-room.* Sydney, through all 
difficulties, seems to have held to the opinion, that if conducted 
fairly and with discretion the success was certain. 

When Jeffrey collected his Contributions to the Review for pub- 
lication in 1844, he dedicated them to Sydney Smith, as " the origi- 
nal projector of the Edinburgh Review." To Jeffrey who brought 
considerable experience as a trained reviewer to the work, belongs 
the honour of having written the first article — a discussion of 
the share borne by the French philosophers in producing their 
great national Revolution — thus striking at once into the main 
question of the troubled times. For thirty-eight years he con- 
tinued to contribute to it compositions, distinguished at once by 
subtlety and enthusiasm ; opening to the public stores of acute, 
philosophical thinking ; and widening this influence by disclosing 
novel methods of criticism and historical description, for a new 
school of writers. He was the prince of modern reviewers ; full, 
ready, ingenious, expert, rational and eloquent. Readers of the 
present day owe him a monument for originating and developing 

* There is a letter from Jeffrey to Horner, giving a lively account of the 
various dispositions of the parties to the undertaking, dated April, 1802 ; the 
Review appearing the following November : " We are in a miserable state of 
backwardness, you must know, and have, been giving some symptoms of 

despondency Something is done, however, and a good deal, I hope, 

is doing. Smith has gone through more than half his task. So has Hamil- 
ton (Alexander, afterward Professor of Sanscrit at Haylcybury). Allen 
has made some progress : and Murray (John A., afterward Lord Murray) 
and myself, I believe, have studied our parts, and tuned our instruments ; 
and are almost ready to begin. On the other hand Thomson (Dr. John) is 
sick. Brown (Dr. Thomas, the metaphysician) has engaged for nothing but 
Miss BailhVs Plays; and Timothy (Thomas Thomson, the lawyer) has en- 
gaged for nothing, but professed it to be his opinion, the other day, that he 
would never put pen to paper in our cause. Brougham must have a sen- 
tence to himself; and I am afraid you will not think it a pleasant one. You 
remember how cheerfully lie approved of our plan at first, and agreed to give 
us an article or two without hesitation. Three or four days ago I proposed 
two or three books that I thought would suit him ; he answered, with perfect 
good humour, that he had changed his view of our plan a little, and rather 
thought, now, that he should decline to have any connection with it." — Hor- 
ner's Correspondence, i. 186. 



28 FIRST NUMBER OF THE REVIEW. 

that intellectual luxury, the speculative, appreciative, picturesque 
Article. — a profound and entertaining compound of metaphysics, 
biography, history and criticism of the highest gusto. 

The momentum of Jeffrey increased as he proceeded, his treat- 
ment growing more easy, varied and commanding ; Smith struck his 
peculiar vein at the outset. The latter wrote seven articles for the 
first number of the Edinburgh. His first paragraph was a famous 
description of Dr. Parr's wig, humourously turned into a quiz 
on the arrangement of his text and notes. A few pages further 
on he despatched, in two or three sentences of witty drollery, an 
Anniversary Sermon before the Humane Society, by a Doctor in 
Divinity. There are also some grave words of counsel adminis- 
tered to Dr. Eenneli, Master of the Temple, for his aptness " to 
put on the appearance of a holy bully, an evangelical swaggerer, 
as if he could carry his point against infidelity by big words and 
strong abuse, and kick and cuff men into Christians." A Mr. 
John Bowles is also pungently rebuked for his vulgar style of 
writing on the affairs of France. In fine, there is proof in this 
very first number, of that moral courage, and of most of those 
brilliant powers of thought and expression which, for nearly half 
a century after, were the delight of Smith's intimates among the 
brightest and most cultivated men of England. His style appears 
to have been fully formed: nor is it any marvel, as, with the 
favourable natural disposition which he inherited, he had been a 
precocious youth in his studies ; had been well disciplined at Ox- 
ford ; since sluggish fortune had afforded him opportunity for med- 
itation on the silent desert of Salisbury Plain, and the habit of 
teaching had brought all his faculties promptly to the surface ; and 
he had, moreover, enjoyed, for several years, the sharp contests of 
the Edinburgh wits, to give the keenest edge to his understanding. 
In October, 1802, the date of the first publication of the Edin- 
burgh Review, he was in his thirty-second year, a mature age for 
his work. His contributions to the first three volumes were nu- 
merous; they were then intermitted, for a time, till they were 



LEAVES EDINBURGH. 29 

vigorously resumed in 1807, and continued, with little interruption, 
for the next twenty years. There were occasional conflicts between 
Sydney's humourous style and the editor's more sober judgment; 
but, happily for the Review, and for posterity, the wit had pretty 
much his own way, in spite of the snubbing. " I think," Smith 
writes, in 1807, to Jeffrey, "you have spoilt many of my jokes;" 
and we find the humourist, even after he had established a reputa- 
tion, restricted " on the subject of raillery."* 

The prospects of the Review did not, at the outset, promise a 
fortune to the contributors and projectors. Indeed, at the com- 
mencement, the literary services rendered to it were voluntary and 
unpaid. It was only after some consideration, and the abandon- 
ment of false notions on the subject, that it was found essential to 
establish the work on a sound mercantile basis, with a paid editor, 
and paid writers. In this period of indecision, with the purse 
held aloof, and with the fortunes of the Review yet to make, 
Sydney Smith, whose profitable pupils had now outgrown his 
services, taking counsel from his wife, resolved to carry his talents 
to London, as the best mart of intellect and literature, doubtless 
looking for a better field for his pulpit oratory, with better chances 
of church promotion than the scant episcopacy of Scotland af- 
forded. He had preached frequently in the Edinburgh chapel, the 
assistant of its regular occupant, Bishop Sandford, with success, 
and had published a first collection of " Six Sermons,"f with 
a striking preface, commenting freely on the not uncommon leth- 
argy, and other defects of the pulpit. He took with him, from 
Edinburgh, in addition, a respectable knowledge of medicine, 
acquired by attending the hospitals — sufficient, at least, to enrich 
his vocabulary with anatomical and other professional terms, occa- 
sionally employed in his writings with felicity; and practical 
enough to alleviate the imaginary or real ailments of his country 
parishioners. He became quite fond of the practice in an amateur 

* Letter to Jeffrey, March 17, 1822. 

t Six Sermons. Edinburgh, 1800. 12ino. 



30 SIR THOMAS BERNARD. 

way, stirring up wit with his prescriptions, and playing a merry 
jingle with his pestle. 

Arriving in London, he at first occupied a small house in 
Doughty street, Russell Square, which he chose, we are told, for 
the legal society of the neighbourhood. His habits of mind quali- 
fied him to enjoy the best points of the profession. Romilly and 
Mackintosh were among his acquaintances at the time, and he 
rapidly found his way into the brilliant circle of wits and diners- 
out who centred about Holland House. The family alliance of 
his brother facilitated this social connection, which common political 
views and congenial powers of mind firmly cemented. Among 
the wits and statesmen who have gathered in those historical halls, 
sacred to literature and freedom, hi the group of Lansdowne, 
Russell, Horner, Mackintosh, Allen, Sharp, Rogers, Moore, Lut- 
trell, Dudley, and all that gifted race of beings, the figure of 
Sydney Smith will always.be remembered. 

But the brilliant young divine had something else to attend to, 
at this time, besides forming distinguished friendships. A narrow 
purse had to be expanded and filled, to meet the wants of an 
increasing family, which now included a son and daughter ; Saba 
(his recent biographer. Lady Holland), born at Edinburgh, and 
Douglas. He applied himself to his profession, preaching several 
occasional sermons, one of which, before a company of volunteers 
when a French invasion seemed imminent, attracted some attention 
from the public. He was soon recommended by the friendship 
of Sir Thomas Bernard,* to an evening preachership at the 

* This eminent philanthropist was the son of Sir Francis Bernard, the 
Colonial Governor of New Jersey and Massachusetts. He was an Alumnus 
of Harvard College, of the class of 1767. Returning to England, he was 
called to the bar in 1780, by the Society of the Middle Temple. Having 
become wealthy by marriage, and the practice of his profession, he devoted 
himself to measures of philanthropy. In 1795, he was elected treasurer of 
the Foundling Hospital, and adopted Count Rumford's plans for economy in 
food and fuel. He projected the Society for Bettering the Condition of the 
Poor, and was one of the originators, in 1799, of the Royal Institution, in- 
tended for the " improvement of the means of industry and domestic comfort 



CONTEST WITH A RECTOR. 31 

Foundling Hospital, worth fifty pounds a year, which was an im- 
portant addition to his limited income. An effort made by him- 
self to secure another position was less successful. A friend who 
was the owner of a chapel, at that time occupied by a congregation 
of Swedenborgians, offered the lease of the building to Sydney 
Smith. To secure the privilege of preaching in it, it was neces- 
sary to obtain the consent of the rector of the Parish. The letters 
addressed him on the occasion by Smith, afford the clearest proof 
of the necessity and poverty to which he was at this time reduced. 
His pride stooped to a plea for the admissibility of his talents and 
virtues to such a post, while he ingeniously complimented the 
rector, and warded off the objection to a divided interest, by 
reminding him that the mere surplus of his over-crowded church 
would fill the few seats of the chapel, which would, moreover, thus 
be rescued from what both must consider the vulgar and injurious 
doctrines of the New Jerusalemites. The rector saw in the pro- 
posal violation of church precedents, danger to the parochial estab- 
lishment, and may have been naturally disinclined to admit a rival 
near his throne. He refused the application. Sydney, who 
thought it a grievance that any ranter might preach, as a matter 
of course, where a well-educated clergyman, with the noblest inten- 
tion, could not gain admission, plied him with pleas and arguments ; 
but without avail. The rector was determined to protect his 
parochial interests ; and the more admirably the applicant argued, 
the more danger was probably seen in the request. Annoyed by 
the correspondence, the dignitary took refuge in an affectation of 
Christian submission to the logic of his opponent. Considering 
the position of the parties, the doctor in power and the curate in 

among the poor," as well as "the advancement of taste and science." Care 
of the chimney sweepers, a Free Chapel in the neighbourhood of the Seven 
Dials, Hospitals, the British Institution for the Fine Arts, the Alfred Club, 
were among his spirited and benevolent projects and labours. Besides his 
Philanthropic Reports, he wrote a little volume, Spurinna ; or, the Comforts 
of Old Age, with Biographical Illustrations. He died in 1818, at the age of 
sixty-eight. A memoir of Bernard, written by his nephew, the Bev. James 
Baker, was published the next year. 



32 CHAPEL PREACHING. 

poverty, it is but a pitiable illustration of the " pricle which apes 
humility," which is presented by a sentence of his closing letter, 
" I hope never to be offended, sir," he writes, " at the freedom of 
any who are so kind as to teach me to know myself; and the in- 
consistency of my letter to you, which you are so good as to point 
out, is, alas ! an addition to the many inconsistencies of which, I 
fear, I have been too often guilty through life." 

In an article in the Edinburgh Review, Sydney Smith subse- 
quently argued the general question of the allowance of free com- 
petition of preachers within the parishes, with an express allusion 
to his own case. He saw, in the deprivation, a great loss of pecu- 
liar talents and efficiency to church interests, and admitted, as well, 
the improbability of gaining his point. " We hope nobody," he 
writes, " will rate our sagacity so very low, as to imagine we have 
much hope that any measure of the kind will ever be adopted. 
All establishments die of dignity. They are too proud to think 
themselves ill, and to take a little physic."* 

Besides the poorly-paid duty at the Foundling Hospital, a 
favourite resort of the Londoners, for its excellent music, and the 
neat display of its charities, Sydney Smith also secured a morning 
preachership at Berkeley Chapel, where his genius and emphasis 
soon succeeded in covering empty benches with a flock of intelli- 
gent hearers. He afterward alternated this service with a similar 
duty at Fitzroy Chapel, with equal acceptability to the public. 
The character of these pulpit discourses, may be judged of 
by the " Two Volumes of Sermons" which he published under 
that title, at the close of this, his first London period, in 1809. 
They are terse in expression, marked generally by strength, pro- 
priety and dignity. There is underneath, rather than lying on the 
surface, a vein of genuine feeling. The occasional discourses for 
public charities are manly, vigorous appeals ; full of sympathy for 
human infirmity, and confident reliance on Christian duty. En- 
forced by the preacher's full sonorous tones, their popular effect may 
* Article on Toleration. Ed. Kev., Feb., 1811. 



SERMONS. 33 

readily be accounted for. They have, what may be remarked 
attending all superior minds, an air, a voice of authority. 

Though setting out with the zeal of a reformer in the pulpit, 
Sydney Smith really attempted little innovation upon its habitual 
practice. His published sermons have nothing special to distin- 
guish them from many others of their class. He probably found, 
on experiment, that there was little room for originality in com- 
positions of necessity circumscribed by various limitations ; and 
had the good sense to recognise the boundary. In the Church of 
England, the admirable liturgy leaves little to be asked of the 
sermon. Sydney Smith was content that the Church should be 
her own expounder in matters of doctrine ; and directed his atten- 
tion to the practical religious obligations of life. His sermons, 
subsequently preached at St. Paul's, and to his country congrega- 
tions, of which a volume was published after his death,* are grave 
and earnest, instinct with the solemnities of life and death. 

* Sermons Preached at St. Paul's Cathedral, the Foundling Hospital, and 
several churches in London ; together with others addressed to a country con- 
gregation, by the late Eev. Sydney Smith, Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's 
Cathedral. London, 1846. Two of the sermons in this collection, "On the 
Excellence of the Christian Gospel," and " On the Necessity of Prayer," 
were freely borrowed from Dr. Barrow. The usage of the English pulpit 
would seem to allow some liberty in this particular. Sydney Smith himself 
tells us, in one of his letters (No. 545 in the collection) that he preached 
Dr. Channing's sermon on war in St. Paul's Cathedral : "I thought I could 
not write anything half so good, so I preached Channing." Channing's 
direct, manly self-reliance pleased him, the pith of his style, and his separa- 
tion of great moral themes from disabling exceptions. These qualities are 
all to be observed as belonging to Sydney Smith himself. 

The Christian Observer for June, 1846, makes a grave representation of 
Sydney Smith's obligation to Barrow. The publication, it should be remem- 
bered, was not an act of Smith but of his executors. A similar negligence 
occurred in the posthumous publication of the sermons of the American 
Bishop Kavcnscroft, one of the most esteemed divines of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. Sydney Smith, but little indebted to the books of 
others for the honours of his writings, cannot be supposed to have practised 
any wilful deception to heighten his reputation. Writing of the imputation 
of receiving attention for articles in the Edinburgh Review not from his pen, 
he says: "I should have considered myself the lowest of created beings to 
have disguised myself in another man's wit and sense, and to have received 



34 LECTURES ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 

If the world was indebted to the residence of Sydney Smith at 
Edinburgh for the establishment of the Keview, and the series of 
brilliant articles with which he followed up its first successes, 
London was also immediately a gainer by the courses of lectures 
on Moral Philosophy, which he delivered during three succes- 
sive seasons, upon his arrival in the great metropolis. These 
popular discourses, as well on abstract as familiar topics, were 
doubtless suggested by Ins attendance upon the thoughtful and 
stimulating lectures of Dugald Stewart, his intimacy with the 
Scottish ratiocinators generally, and with the original and inquiring 
Thomas Brown. But if he was under obligations to these men 
for the choice of subject, and a certain speculative habit in the 
technical portions of his course, there was a wide field lying all 
around these intellectual barriers which he made entirely his own. 
This was in what may be called the practical moralities of his text 
■ — the quick, genial, kindly introspection with which he penetrated 
to the heart of his subject, and brought to the world noble and 
charitable thoughts, full of liberality of opinion, zeal for virtue 
and human sympathy with his kind. The term moral philosophy 
truly characterizes them ; for their subtle niceties of the intellect, 
their keen distinctions, and rapid play of wit, are subordinate to 
their healthy sentiment, and a certain ardent perception of the 
beautiful. 

There were twenty-seven lectures, in all, before the Eoyal In- 
stitution. Sydney Smith was led to undertake them by the pro- 
posals and encouragement of his friend Sir Thomas Bernard, who 

a reward to which I was not entitled." After this we may conclude that, in 
preaching the sermons of Barrow or Channing, he was doing nothing con- 
sidered out of the way or dishonourable in the English Church. In this 
respect he would appear to have followed the practice of the chaplain so 
judiciously chosen by Sir Koger de Coverley, who, upon being asked of a 
Saturday night, who preached on the morrow, replied the Bishops of St. 
Asaph in the morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. Another important 
qualification insisted upon by the good knight was possessed by the Reverend 
Sydney in perfection. He had " a good aspect and a clear voice." ( Spectator, 
No. 106.) 



POPULAR SUCCESS. 35 

had been associated a few years before with the American Count 
Rumford, in the foundation of the society. The success was 
immediate. An audience assembled, composed of the most in- 
telligent society of the metropolis, large in numbers for a popular 
lecturer in London even at the present day, numbering six to eight 
hundred persons. This, though far below that of the company on 
any distinguished occasion of the kind in New York or Boston, of 
late years, was held to be an immense achievement. Ladies and 
philosophers were alike entrapped into admiration. A long time 
after, the lecturer, who was accustomed to speak lightly of the per- 
formance as a matter of literature, remembered with pleasure the 
brilliant result. Toward the close of his life he was applied to by 
Dr. Whewell for some information on the subject discussed, when 
he replied, " My lectures are gone to the dogs and are utterly for- 
gotten. I knew nothing of moral philosophy, but I was thoroughly 
aware that I wanted two hundred pounds to furnish my house. 
The success, however, was prodigious ; all Albemarle street blocked 
up with carriages, and such an uproar as I never remember to 
have been excited by any other literary imposture."* His friend 
Horner, who was in London, writes to Lady Mackintosh, at Bom- 
bay, that there were but two topics in London that winter, the 
young Roscius and the lectures of "the Right Reverend, our 
Bishop of Mickleham," which, as we learn from Lady Holland's 
Memoir was a familiar title given to Sydney Smith, from the seat 
of Conversation Sharp's cottage in Surrey, where the friendly cir- 
cle frequently met.| It was something, in the popular way, to en- 

* Letter to Dr. Whewell, April 8, 1843. Memoirs, ii. 456. 

t Richard Sharp was distinguished in the conversational circles of the me- 
tropolis. Hence his sobriquet. His forte lay in metaphysics. There is 
an anecdote of Rogers having proposed to him some question of this kind, 
when he somewhat discourteously replied, " There are only two men in Eng- 
land [probably Mackintosh and Bobua Smith] with whom I ever talk on 
metaphysics." (Dyce's Table-Talk of Rogers.) Sharp was a careful, re- 
fined writer. His single volume, " Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse," 
is the book of a scholar— thoughtful and polished. He was from 180G till 
1820 in Parliament. He died in 1835, at the age of seventy-six, leaving a 



36 LETTER TO WHEWELL. 

joy a fashionable mania at the same time with Master Betty who 
reaped that season, from his first London engagements, no less 
than eight thousand pounds.* The literary journal which gives us 
an account of the latter with a portrait of the triumphant prodigy, 
has not a word of the lecturer at the Eoyal Institution. We re- 
member how, not many years since, disappointment and chagrin at 
the success of Tom Thumb ended the career of the artist Hay- 
don. Sydney Smith was made of other stuff. Had his fortune 
been different, had Eoscius carried away his audience, the lectu- 
rer would have consoled himself with his own philosophy, laughed 
at the folly of the town, and kept his head on his shoulders for a 
more lucky time. 

Sydney Smith, following the definition of Moral Philosophy in 
use in the Scottish Universities where he had found it compre- 
hending mental philosophy as well, ran over the history of ancient 
and modern theories, discussed the faculties of the mind, laws of 
conception, the memory, imagination, judgment; the theories of 
the beautiful and the sublime ; the escaping essences of wit and 
humour ; the qualities and methods of the more direct moral affec- 
tions ; the practical conduct of the understanding, and the every- 
day virtues of life. " Every week," he writes, in the letter to Dr. 
Whewell, which we have cited, " I had a new theory about con- 
ception and perception; and supported by a natural manner, a 
torrent of words, and an impudence scarcely credible in this pru- 
dent age. Still, in justice to myself, I must say there were some 
good things in them. But good and bad are all gone." He did 
not publish them at the time or afterward. Resorting to them as 
a quarry, he drew forth some passages on education for his arti- 

fortune of a quarter of a million sterling, which he acquired in business, as a 
wholesale hatter. There is a pleasing anecdote of Grattan in connection with 
Sharp's seat at Mickleham. In the old age of the Irish statesman, Horner 
took him down there on a visit, in the spring, " on purpose to hear the night- 
ingales, for he loves music like an Italian, and the country like a true-born 
Englishman." (Horner Correspondence, May, 1816 ii. 355.) 
* European Magazine, xlvii. 374. 



MERITS OF THE LECTURES. 37 

cles in the Edinburgh Review, destroyed many of the remaining 
pages, and would have burnt the whole had not his wife interposed 
and saved the mutilated manuscripts for posthumous publication. 
Enough fortunately survived to fill an octavo of four hundred 
pages, which was published in London, in 1850.* Though incom- 
plete as a view of mental science, it is not without considerable 
merit on that score. It is a mine of pleasantries and subtleties, of 
sound thinking in eloquent terms, of description and sentiment, of 
human nature and natural history, of quips and cranks, familiar- 
ities and profundities, theories of morality, equally below the 
clouds and above the earth. The style was well adapted to the pur- 
poses of the popular lecturer with whom it is a necessity to mix 
entertainment with instruction; though there are few who can 
equal Sydney Smith in a laughing course of morals and meta- 
physics.f 

The house, situated in Orchard street, was furnished with the pro- 
ceeds, and Sydney Smith continued to occupy it during his early 

* Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, delivered at the Koyal Insti- 
tution, in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, by the late Kev. Sydney Smith, 
M.A. London: Longmans, 1850, 8vo. pp.424. 

t Henry Rogers, the metaphysician, author of the essay on " Reason and 
Faith," in an article in the Edinburgh Review says of the Lectures : — " Inex- 
haustible vivacity and variety of illustration, one would, of course, expect 
from such a mind; but this is far from being all. The sound judgment and 
discrimination with which he often treats very difficult topics — the equilib- 
rium of mind which he maintains when discussing those on which his own 
idiosyncracy might be supposed to have led him astray — of which an in- 
stance is seen in his temperate estimate of the value of wit and humour — the 
union of independence and modesty with which he canvasses the opinions of 
those from whom he differs — the comprehensiveness of many of his specula- 
tions and the ingenuity of others — the masterly case and perspicuity with 
which even abstruse thoughts are expressed, and the frequently original, and 
sometimes profound remarks on human nature, to which he gives utterance 
— remarks hardly to be expected from any young metaphysician, and least 
of all from one of so lively and mercurial a temperament — all render these 
lectures very profitable as well as very pleasant reading ; and show conclu- 
sively that the author might, if lie had pleased, have acquired no mean repu- 
tation as an expositor of the very arduous branch of science to which they 
relate." (Ed. Kev. April, 1850.) 



38 CLUB LIFE. 

residence in London. The sketchers of his biography have dwelt 
with pleasure upon his mode of living at this time. With an in- 
creasing family, his means were narrow and required the practice 
of rigid economy. Still he supported his family with honour, and 
enjoyed, in their essentials, the delights of English hospitality. 
Costly entertainments he could not, and, what was more to the pur- 
pose of virtuous independence, would not give ; but he encouraged 
a weekly meeting of friends at his house by the entertainment of 
a frugal supper, and when such men as Horner, Mackintosh, 
Romilly, Luttrell, Lord Holland, and others of that stamp, came, 
each guest, as Goldsmith says in the Retaliation, brought the best 
dish in himself. We are not to suppose, however, that the com- 
pany ever went away hungry or thirsty. We find him, too, 
member of a weekly dining " King of Clubs," where the intellect 
justified the name. There never was a time in his fife, apparently, 
when the social powers of Smith were not in requisition. He was 
eminently what Dr. Johnson said Sir John Hawkins was not, a 
clubable man. In after-fife, in London, he became a member of 
Johnson's own famous Literary Club. Pity that no Boswell bore 
him company in these resorts !* 

When, in those early London days, the host made his way on 
foot to the dinner parties of the wealthy, he neutralized the as- 
tonishment of the lackeys in the hall, as he released his grimed 
overshoes, by his humourous remarks on the occasion. Far prefer- 
able was this cheerful encounter with the world, this adroit turn- 
ing of its conventionalities, this healthy share in its activity, to the 

* The King of Clubs was founded about the end of the last century by a 
party at Sir James Mackintosh's house consisting of himself and Mr. Rogers, 
Mr. Sharp, Mr. Robert Smith (who gave the name to the club) Mr. Scarlett 
and Mr. John Allen. To these original members were afterward added the 
names of many of the most distinguished men of the time, amongst others, 
Lords Lansdowne, Holland, Brougham, Cooper, King and Selkirk ; Messrs. 
Porson, Romilly, Payne Knight, Horner, Bryan Edwards, Sydney Smith, 
Dumont, Jeffrey, Smithson, Tennant, Whishaw, Alexander Baring, Luttrell, 
Blake, Hallam, Ricardo, Hoppncr. Mr. Yv T indham was to be balloted for on 
the Saturday succeeding his lamented death. The King of Clubs came to a 
sudden dissolution in the year 1824. — Life of Sir James Mackintosh, i. 137. 



SOCIAL INCONVENIENCES. 39 

too frequent morosity which repines at the unequal distribution of 
fortune, and eats its heart (a much inferior banquet to a good din- 
ner) in solitude. Sydney Smith, by virtue of his clerical profes- 
sion, the family connection with Lord Holland, his talents, had a 
just right of entry into the best London society. That he enjoyed 
its privileges without paying for them the price exacted from Moore 
and Theodore Hook is to be set down to the courage and good 
sense of his nature. That it did not cost him an effort to overcome 
the inequality of fortune between him and his wealthy friends, "in 
a country," where, as he insisted, "poverty is infamous,"* is wit- 
nessed by a remark he let fall in after-life, when he had tasted the 
emoluments of church preferment. "Moralists tell you of the 
evils of wealth and station, and the happiness of poverty. I have 
been very poor the greatest part of my life, and have borne it as 
well, I believe, as most people, but I can safely say that I have 
been happier every guinea I have gained. I well remember when 
Mrs. Sydney and I were young, in London, with no other equipage 
than my umbrella, when we went out to dinner in a hackney 
coach, when the rattling step was let down, and the proud, pow- 
dered red plushes grinned, and her gown was fringed with straw, 
how the iron entered into my soul."f There was but a short period 
in Sydney Smith's life, however, in which he is to be looked upon 
as a very poor man, though for a considerable period he remained 
a very ill-rewarded one. In the first years of his London resi- 
dence, when he was making his way, he was assisted by a hun- 
dred pounds a year from his brother; but his chapel preaching 
and lecturing provided him the means of a limited independence. 
A turn in politics, on the death of Pitt, brought Smith's friends, 
the Whigs, into office in 180G, and the prompt efforts of Lord, or 
rather, Lady Holland, secured him a slice of church patronage 
from the Chancellor, Lord Erskine,! in the living of Foston-le-Clay, 

* First letter to Archdeacon Singleton, t Lady Holland's memoir, p. 200. 

X Smith went to thank Erskine for the appointment. " Oh," said Erskine, 
" don't thank me, Mr. Smith. T gave you the living because Lady Holland 



40 PLYMLEY LETTERS. 

in Yorkshire, a parish embracing a small, rude farmer population, 
some eleven miles from York. It seems to have been a sinecure 
when it was presented, since at that time there had not been a 
resident clergyman for a hundred and fifty years, and Smith, 
through the indulgence of his diocesan Archbishop Markham, and 
by virtue of his preachership at the Foundling, enjoyed the first 
year or two of his incumbency quietly in London, while a curate 
performed the duty for him at the north. 

The year 1807 gave birth to the Letters on the Subject of the 
Catholics, to my Brother Abraham, who lives in the Country, by 
Peter Plymley. They were ten in number, and followed in quick 
succession, disturbing not a little the equanimity of the ministry 
of Canning and Perceval, by their sharp, pungent attacks, while 
strengthening the cause of liberal reform by their enormous popu- 
lar success.* Though published anonymously, they who knew 
Sydney Smith knew Peter Plymley. No more caustic wit had 
been expended on politics since the productions of Swift. Peter 
Plymley's object was to rescue the claims of the Irish Catholics 
from the vast mass of prejudice, unsound political economy, and 
false reasoning which, as he justly thought, overlaid justice and 
judgment in the minds of well-disposed but bigoted and unthinking 
Englishmen. The vehicle chosen for the discussion, a series of 
expostulatory letters on the affairs of the day, addressed by a man 
of the world to a clergyman in the country, gave the author an 
opportunity to play off his knowledge of clerical habitudes, and 
the peculiar idiosyncracies of the Establishment. The main scope 

insisted on my doing so : and if she had desired me to give it to the devil, he 
must have had it."— Dyce's Table Talk of Rogers. 

* " The Government of that day," says Sydney Smith, in the preface to 
his writings, " took great pains to find out the author ; all that they could find 
was, that they were brought to Mr. Budd, the publisher, by the Earl of 
Lauderdale. Somehow or another, it came to be conjectured that I was that 
author : I have always denied it ; but, finding that I denied it in vain, I have 
thought it might be as well to include the Letters in this Collection : they had 
an immense circulation at the time, and I think above twenty thousand copies 
were sold." 



TOLERATION. 41 

of his arguments was expediency ; the practical effect of continu- 
ing wrongs, which would throw the population of Ireland into 
the arms of the French ; and, on the other hand, the practical 
effect of freedom, and free intercourse in repressing differences, 
the chief nutriment of which was oppression. Wit, irony, logic, 
the author's peculiar weapons of the argumentum ad hominem, and 
the reductio ad ahsurdum, are freely employed in illustration of 
these views. Though the letters have lost some of their interest 
since the local absurdities of the day which they refuted have 
been forgotten, they remain the completest exhibition of the 
author's powers, in his favourite method of conquering prejudice, 
and substituting perennial wit and wisdom for darkness and error. 
Lessons of universal interest in religious toleration may still be 
learnt by the world, from this partisan skirmish in behalf of a 
cause which has since been nobly established in England. 

Smith further assisted the question in this year, by a sermon on 
Toleration, preached before the influential audience, chiefly of 
barristers, at the Temple church. It was, also, printed at the 
time, and is included in his collection of sermons of 1809. Fol- 
lowing the outline of Paley, he defines in it the essentials of a 
Church establishment : " An order of men set apart for the minis- 
terial office ; a regular provision made for them ; and a particular 
creed containing the articles of their faith." His maintenance of 
these points though they probably fell short of the views of the 
High- Church party, go beyond what would be asserted in America. 
Indeed, it would be a sorry fact in the world's history, if America 
had not fully disproved what he chose to anticipate of the fate of 
Christianity in this hemisphere : " Homely and coarse," he some- 
what gratuitously interpolates in this discourse, " as these principles 
may appear, to many speculative men, they are the only ones by 
which the existence of any religion can be secured to the com- 
munity ; and we have now too much reason to believe that the 
system of greater latitude, attempted naturally enough in the new 
world, will end fatally for the Christian religion, and for good 



42 THE CATHOLIC QUESTION. 

practical morality." Sydney Smith was a valiant man when he 
offended his friends and brother churchmen by his plea for the 
Catholics ; but he himself here needs the mantle of indulgence 
cast by the poet over the " fears of the brave and follies of the 
wise." His main positions are, that the Roman Church is to be 
judged, not by its past history, but its present conduct ; that the 
Established Church of England, with a proper respect for its 
powers and advantages, should be magnanimous to those who 
differ from it, should prove its superiority by charity, and maintain 
the lesson of his text from St. Paul, that " God is not the author 
of confusion, but of peace, in all the churches." 

At the same time he enforced his views of the Catholic Ques- 
tion by an article in the Edinburgh Review,* hi which he separ- 
ated the historical causes of the disaffection of Ireland growing 
out of the political conquest, and those attributable to religious 
hostilities — assigning a slight proportional weight to the latter. 
To these views he held till the close of his life. Thirty-two years 
later he wrote, in reviving this article, in reference to agitations 
which survived Catholic emancipation : " It is now only difficult 
to tranquillize Ireland, before it was impossible. As to the dan- 
ger from Catholic doctrines, I must leave such apprehensions to 
the respectable anility of these realms."f One of the latest and 
most vigorous of Sydney Smith's productions was devoted to this 
cause. Among his papers, after his death, was found an unfin- 
ished pamphlet, that "startling and matchless Fragment," as 
Jeffrey called it, which was published in 1845, with the tithe, A 
Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church. None of his ear- 
lier writings surpass it in wit and felicity of illustration. Every 
sentence is a jest or an epigram worthy the fame of a Pascal or a 
Swift. It is an advocacy of the appropriation of the Irish tithes 
by the state, to the regular payment of the Roman Catholic clergy, 
as an effective cure of the prevalent wrangling and disaffection — 
the O'Connellism of the time. Upon that arch-agitator himself, 
* July, 1807. t Works, 1st ed., i. 84. 



HESLINGTON. 48 

he bestows some memorable counsel, not the less wisdom for the 
humour in which it is sheathed. He also recommends the estab- 
lishment of diplomatic relations with the Roman Pontiff.* 

To return from this continuous sketch of Sydney Smith's literary 
efforts in the cause of Catholic Emancipation, to the year 1808. By 
a new residence bill, clerical incumbents were compelled to build or 
restore and inhabit the parsonage houses, which, under the preva- 
lent absenteeism, had very numerously gone to decay throughout 
England. The parochial establishment of Foston-le-Clay, though 
with capabilities of improved fortune to its new possessor, was 
one of the least inviting for a restoration or a residence. The 
parsonage, bounded by a foalyard and a churchyard, was simply 
a kitchen with a room above it, ready to tumble upon the occupant. 
Sydney Smith surveyed the premises, the shambling hovel and 
three hundred acres of glebe land without tithe, to be farmed by 
himself, and hesitated. To gain time for consideration, and to 
effect, if possible, an exchange, he secured from the archbishop, Dr. 
Vernon Harcourt, a respite of three years, during which he estab- 
lished himself at Heslington, a village in the immediate vicinity of 
York. The proceeds of his two volumes of sermons, and a loan 
from his brother Robert of about five hundred pounds, assisted his 
removal from London to the north in the summer of 1809. 

Heslington mitigated the descent from London to Foston, or, in 
Smith's words, "the change from the aurelia to the grub state."f With 
the resources of York at his elbow, he lived in comparative retire- 
ment, visiting his parish, concocting plans of study, reading much, 
writing for the Edinburgh Review and familiarizing himself with 
the occupations of his farm land. In truth, though the society of 

* Sydney Smith also prepared an account of English misrule in Ireland 
from the earliest date of English possession, which Lady Holland tells us, 
" formed so fearful a picture that he hesitated to give it to the world when 
done/' It still exists in manuscript. Macaulay, who was consulted on its 
publication as a posthumous work, by Mrs. Sydney Smith, recommended its 
suppression His letter is given in Lady Holland's Memoir. 

t ToLadv Holland, June 24, 1809. 



44 RESOURCES. 

London was the natural home of his talents, he liked the practical 
demands of his new life, the management of crops and cattle and 
peasants, the contrivances of building and the regulation of his 
parish. The loss of London society to an already established 
diner-out, who watched with eagerness the political and social 
movements of the day, was a privation; but these things had 
brought with them something of satiety, and they were relin- 
quished cheerfully, as he expresses it in a letter to Jeffrey, "for 
more quiet, more leisure, less expense and more space for his 
children,"* while he adds, "Mrs. Sydney is delighted with her 
rustication. She has suffered all the evils of London, and enjoyed 
none of its goods." In his philosophical way he writes the next 
year to Lady Holland: "I am not leading precisely the life I 
should choose, but that which (all things considered as well as I 
could consider them) appeared to me the most eligible. I am re- 
solved, therefore, to like it, and to reconcile myself to it; which is 
more manly than to feign myself above it, and to send up com 
plaints by the post, of being thrown away, and being desolate, and 

such like trash If, with a pleasant wife, three children, a 

good house and farm, many books, and many friends, who wish 
me well, I cannot be happy, I am a very silly, foolish fellow, and 
what becomes of me is of very little consequence. I have, at least, 
this chance of doing well in Yorkshire, that I am heartily tired of 
London."f " Instead of being unamused by trifles," he writes to 
Jeffrey, drawing on his fund of happiness, "I am, as I well knew 
I should be, amused by them a great deal too much ; I feel an un- 
governable interest about my horses, or my pigs, or my plants ; I 
am forced, and always was forced, to task myself up into an inter- 
est for any higher objects."]: Of his reading, he tells Jeffrey that, 
"having scarcely looked at a book for &ve years, I am rather 
hungry." || Burke, Homer, Suetonius, Godwin's Enquirer, agricul- 

* York, Nov. 20, 1808. 

t To Lady Holland, Heslington, Sept. 9, 1809. 

X To Jeffrey, Heslington, Sept. 3, 1809. 

II To Jeffrey, Heslington, 1810. 



OXFORD EDUCATION. 45 

tural matters, and "a great deal of Adam Smith," were thrown in 
to fill the vacuum. "I am," he writes to his friend John Murray, 
the lawyer of Edinburgh, "reading Locke in my old age, never 
having read him thoroughly in my youth: a fine, satisfactory sort 
of fellow, but very long-winded."* These transition years at Hes- 
lington supplied to the Edinburgh Review a series of articles 
on Education of Women, Public Schools and the Universities, a 
Vindication of Fox's Historical Work, an account of the Walche- 
ren Expedition, and a paper on Indian affairs. "I am about," he 
writes to Lady Holland, "to open the subject of classical learning, 
in the Review, from which, by some accident or other, it has 
hitherto abstained. It will give great offence, and therefore be 
more fit for this journal, the genius of which seems to consist in 
stroking the animal the contrary way to that which the hair lies." 
The Edinburgh Review united its forces against the Oxford 
system of education. The University was attacked in several 
articles by various writers, on the score of its devotion to Aristotle, 
the inefficiency of its press, particularly in an edition of Strabo, 
and the excessive employment of its students in the minutisB of 
Latin and Greek. The general assault was made by Sydney 
Smith. The University was compelled to defend itself; and its 
renowned champion, Edward Copleston, Provost of Oriel, after- 
ward Bishop of Llandaff, published "A Reply to the Calumnies 
of the Edinburgh Review against Oxford." This was met in the 
Edinburgh by an article evidently proceeding from the three 
authors of the original remarks on Aristotle, the edition of Strabo, 
and Professional Education. " A Second Reply to the Edinburgh 
Review," also from the pen of Copleston, commenting on the triple 
article, closed the controversy. t Sydney Smith, always an excel- 

* To John Murray, Heslington, Dec. 6, 1811. 

t The Edinburgh Review articles alluded to are an Analysis of Laplace's 
Mechanique Celeste, in its concluding pages, January, 1808; the Oxford 
Edition of Strabo, Jan. 1809; Edgeworth'fl Professional Education, Oct. 
1809 ; Calumnies against Oxford, April, 1810. Coplcston's publications arc 
entitled, " A Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review against Ox- 



46 . GUESTS AT HESLINGTON. 

lent partisan skirmisher, with enough of the philosopher in his 
generalizations, and of the jury lawyer in the skill of his manage- 
ment of points, held the ear of the public on the question. In the 
edition of his writings, the paper on Professional Education is one 
of the most complete, and certainly not the least brilliant of his 
essays. The exclusive pedantry of Oxford was fair game for a 
satirist ; the attack, .since grown familiar, and followed by various 
degrees of reform, was then a novelty ; it was something to invade 
the dignity of the ancient University, and compel it to a defence : 
the public was entertained, and Sydney Smith had his revenge 
upon the Busbys of his school-boy days for their infliction of longs 
and shorts. It was a capital subject of mirth with him, of which 
he never tired. The reply to Copleston was not over-delicate in 
its choice of terms. It was, in fact, a specimen of the old Edin- 
burgh swagger, relieved by some excellent passes of humour. 

While thus continuing his literary pursuits, Sydney Smith was 
not altogether cut off from politics and society. In sympathy with 
the times he projected " Common Sense for 1810," a pamphlet which 
it is to be regretted he never accomplished as it would doubtless 
have formed a brilliant companion to the Plymley Letters. He 
paid visits to Lord Grey, whom he greatly admired, at Howick, 
and made flying journeys to London and Holland House. Rom- 
illy, Mackintosh, Horner, and others, visited him — among the rest, 
Jeffrey, " who came with an American gentleman, Mr. Simond, 
and his niece, Miss Wilkes. We little suspected," adds Lady Hol- 
land, " that this lady, great niece to the agitator Wilkes, was so 
soon after to become Mrs. Jeffrey.* 

ford, containing an Account of Studies pursued in that University," and 
" A Second Reply to the Edinburgh Review," both in 1810. The Quarterly 
Review for August, 1810, reviews the whole discussion. 

* "About the close of 1810, Mons. Simond, a French gentleman, who had 
left his country early in the revolution, came with his wife and a niece to visit 
some friends in Edinburgh, where they remained some weeks. Madame Si- 
mond was a sister of Charles Wilkes, Esq., banker in New York, a nephew of 
the famous John ; and the niece was Miss Charlotte Wilkes, a daughter of 
this Charles. It was during this visit, I believe, that she and Jeffrey first 



BUILDING AT FOSTON. 47 

Having given up all hopes of exchanging his undesirable living 
of Foston, he commenced the reconstruction of the parsonage- 
house. His account of the proceedings is too characteristic to be 
given in other terms than his own. " All my efforts for an ex- 
change having failed, I asked and obtained from my friend the 
Archbishop another year to build in. And I then set my shoul- 
der to the wheel in good earnest ; sent for an architect ; he produ- 
ced plans which would have ruined me. I made him my bow : ' You 
build for glory, sir ; I, for use.' I returned him his plans, with 
five-and-twenty pounds, and sat down in my thinking-chair, and in 
a few hours Mrs. Sydney and I concocted a plan which has pro- 
duced what I call the model of parsonage-houses. 

" I then took to horse to provide bricks and timber ; was advised 
to make my own bricks, of my own clay ; of course, when the 
kiln was opened, all bad ; mounted my horse again, and in twenty- 
four hours had bought thousands of bricks and tons of timber. "Was 
advised by neighbouring gentlemen to employ oxen : bought four 
— Tug and Lug, Hawl and Crawl; but Tug and Lug took to 
fainting, and required buckets of sal-volatile, and Hawl and Crawl 
to he down in the mud. So I did as I ought to have done at first 
— took the advice of the farmer instead of the gentleman ; sold my 
oxen, bought a team of horses, and at last, in spite of a frost which 
delayed me six weeks, in spite of walls running down with wet, in 
spite of the advice and remonstrances of friends who predicted our 
death, in spite of an infant of six months old, who had never been 
out of the house, I landed my family in my new house nine months 
after laying the first stone, on the 20th of March ; and performed 

met." — Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey, i. 168, where an account of the great re- 
viewer's subsequent visit to America, in the midst of the war in 1813, and of 
his marriage to the lady in America, is given. Louis Simond published sev- 
eral books of travel, highly esteemed for their political and economical social 
studies. His "Journal of a Tour and llesidencc in Great Britain in 1810- 
11/' appeared, translated from the French, in 1810. In 1822 he published his 
"Travels in Switzerland," performed 1817-18-19. "Travels in Italy and 
Sicily appeared at Paris in 1827. He passed the latter years of his life at 
Geneva, where he died in July, 1831. 



48 THE IMMORTAL. 

my promise to the letter to the Archbishop, by issuing forth at 
midnight with a lantern tc meet the last cart, with the cook and 
the cat, which had stuck in the mud, and fairly established them 
before twelve o'clock at night in the new parsonage-house — a feat, 
taking ignorance, inexperience, and poverty, into consideration, 
requiring, I assure you, no small degree of energy. 

" It made me a very poor man for many years, but I never re- 
pented it. I turned schoolmaster, to educate my son, as I could 
not afford to send him to school. Mrs. Sydney turned school- 
mistress, to educate my girls, as I could not afford a governess. I 
turned farmer, as I could not let my land. A man-servant was 
too expensive ; so I caught up a little garden-girl, made like a 
milestone, christened her Bunch, put a napkin in her hand, and 
made her my butler. The girls taught her to read, Mrs. Sydney, 
to wait, and I undertook her morals ; Bunch became the best but- 
ler in the county. 

" I had little furniture, so I bought a cart-load of deals ; took a 
carpenter (who came to me for parish relief, called Jack Robinson), 
with a face like a full-moon, into my service ; established him in a 
barn, and said, ' Jack, furnish my house.' You see the result ! 

" At last it was suggested that a carriage was much wanted in 
the establishment ; after diligent search, I discovered in the back 
settlements of a York coachmaker an ancient green chariot, sup- 
posed to have been the earliest invention of the kind. I brought 
it home in triumph to my admiring family. Being somewhat dilap- 
idated, the village tailor lined it, the village blacksmith repaired it ; 
nay (but for Mrs. Sydney's earnest entreaties), we believe the vil- 
lage painter would have exercised his genius upon the exterior ; 
it escaped this danger, however, and the result was wonderful. 
Each year added to its charms : it grew younger and younger ; a 
new wheel, a new spring ; I christened it the Immortal; it was 
known all over the neighbourhood ; the village boys cheered it, 
and the village dogs barked at it ; but ' Faber meae fortunge \ was 
my motto, and we had no false shame. 



THE FLITTING. 49 

" Added to all these domestic cares, I was village parson, village 
doctor, village comforter, village magistrate, and Edinburgh Re- 
viewer ; so you see I had not much time left on my hands to re- 
gret London. 

" My house was considered the ugliest in the county, but all ad- 
mitted it was one of the most comfortable ; and we did not die, as 
our friends had predicted, of the damp walls of the parsonage.'' 

The establishment, with its farm appurtenances, into which Syd- 
ney Smith thus inducted himself, cost him some four thousand pounds 
in all, and of course seriously hampered his fortunes during his 
protracted, involuntary, though not unhappy residence. The in- 
come of Foston was five hundred pounds ; increased for the last 
two or three years to eight hundred.* 

Lady Holland, with a woman's feeling for the details of do- 
mestic life, has given a genial sketch of this new flitting — it 
was in the spring of 1814 — with the accessories of character and 
homely incident. 

" It was a cold, bright March day, with a biting east wind. The 
beds we left in the morning had to be packed up and slept on at 
night ; wagon after wagon of furniture poured in every minute ; 
the roads were so cut up that the carriage could not reach the 
door ; and my mother lost her shoe in the mud, which was ankle- 
deep, while bringing her infant up to the house in her arms. 

" But oh, the shout of joy as we entered and took possession ! — 

the first time in our lives that we had inhabited a house of our 

own. How we admired it, ugly as it was ! With what pride my 

dear father welcomed us, and took us from room to room; old 

Molly Mills, the milk-woman, who had had charge of the house, 

grinning with delight in the background. We thought it a palace ; 

yet the drawing-room had no door, the bare plaster walls ran down 

with wet, the windows were like ground-glass, from the moisture 

which had to be wiped up several times a day by the housemaid. 

No carpets, no chairs, nothing unpacked ; rough men bringing in 

* First Letter to Archdeacon Singleton. 
3 



50 ANNIE KAY. 

rougher packages at every moment. But then was the time to 
behold my father! — amidst the confusion, he thought for every- 
body, cared for everybody, encouraged everybody, kept everybody 
in good humour. How he exerted himself ! how his loud, rich 
voice might be heard in all directions, ordering, arranging, explain- 
ing, till the household storm gradually subsided ! Each half-hour 
improved our condition ; fires blazed in every room ; at last we 
all sat down to our tea, spread by ourselves on a huge package be- 
fore the drawing-room fire, sitting on boxes round it ; and retired 
to sleep on our beds placed on the floor — the happiest, merriest, 
and busiest family in Christendom. In a few days, under my 
father's active exertions, everything was arranged with tolerable 
comfort in the little household, and it began to assume its wonted 
appearance. 

" In speaking of the establishment of Foston, Annie Kay must 
not be forgotten. She entered our service at nineteen years of 
age, but possessing a degree of sense and lady-like feeling not often 
found in her situation of life — first as nurse, then as lady's-maid, 
then housekeeper, apothecary's boy, factotum, and friend. All who 
have been much at Foston or Combe Florey know Annie Kay ; 
she was called into consultation on every family event, and proved 
herself a worthy oracle. Her counsels were delivered in the softest 
voice, with the sweetest smile, and in the broadest Yorkshire. She 
ended by nursing her old master through his long and painful ill- 
ness, night and day ; she was with him at his death ; she followed 
him to his grave ; she was remembered in his will ; she survived 
him but two years, which she spent in my mother's house ; and, 
after her long and faithful service of thirty years, was buried by 
my mother in the same cemetery as her master, respected and 
lamented by all his family, as the most . faithful of servants and 
friends. 

" So much for the interior of the establishment. Out-of-doors 
reigned Molly Mills — cow, pig, poultry, garden, and post-woman; 
with her short red petticoat, her legs like millposts, her high 



MUSTER SMITH. 51 

cheek-bones red and shrivelled like winter apples ; a perfect speci- 
men of a ' yeowoman ;' a sort of kindred spirit, too ; for she was 
the wit of the village, and delighted in a crack with her master, 
when she could get it. She was as important in her vocation as 
Annie Kay in hers ; and Molly here, and Molly there, might be 
heard in every direction. Molly was always merry, willing, active, 
and true as gold ; she had little book-learning, but enough to 
bring up two fine athletic sons, as honest as herself; though, unlike 
her, they were never seen to smile, but were as solemn as two 
owls, and would not have said a civil thing to save their lives. 
They ruled the farm. Add to these the pet donkey, Bitty, already 
introduced to the public ; a tame fawn, at last dismissed for eating 
the maid's clothes, which he preferred to any other diet ; and a 
lame goose, condemned at last to be roasted for eating all the fruit 
in the garden; together with Bunch and Jack Robinson — and 
you have the establishment." 

An anecdote of Smith's first visit to Foston, preserved by Lady 
Holland, is a good index of his character at all times, and of his 
subsequent position in the village. The house and grounds pre- 
sented the most forbidding appearance. To shed light upon the 
scene : " The clerk, the most important man in the village, was 
summoned ; a man who had numbered eighty years, looking, with 
his long gray hair, his threadbare coat, deep wrinkles, stooping 
gait, and crutch-stick, more ancient than the parsonage-house. He 
looked at my father for some time from under his gray, shaggy 
eyebrows, and held a long conversation with him, in which the old 
clerk showed that age had not quenched the natural shrewdness 
of the Yorkshireman. At last, after a pause, he said, striking his 
crutch-stick on the ground, ' Muster Smith, it often stroikes moy 
moind, that people as comes frae London is such fools. . . . But 
you,' he said (giving him a nudge with his stick), ( I see you are 
no fool.'" The foraging accommodations of the parish were once 
feelingly described by Sydney Smith : " My living in Yorkshire 
was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from 



52 FOSTON LIFE. 

a lemon." In his jesting way, he said, " When I began to thump 
the cushion of my pulpit, on first coming to Foston, as is my wont 
when I preach, the accumulated dust of a hundred and fifty years 
made such a cloud, that for some minutes I lost sight of my con- 
gregation." 

Sydney Smith was forty-three when he began his residence at 
Foston. He remained there fourteen years, until his appointment, 
by Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, to a vacant stall at Bristol. They 
were years of some privation, which was overcome by economy, 
and the incumbent's great mastery of the laws of human happiness. 
At one time, in a season of the failure of the harvest, the family, 
with their neighbours, were obliged to dispense with bread, and 
consume, as best they could, the damaged, sprouted wheat. A 
malignant fever in the parish was the consequence of this distress, 
which brought out the medical and humanitary resources of the 
rector. Courageous in risking life on this, as on similar occasions, 
he did much to alleviate the general misery. Inability to purchase 
books at this period, must have been a frequent annoyance. The 
omniscient Edinburgh Reviewer conscientiously abstained from 
running in debt for a cyclopaedia. His friends, however, and the 
neighbouring library of Castle Howard, where he enjoyed a warm 
intimacy with the Earl of Carlisle, in a great measure supplied the 
deficiency.* 

# The Earl of Carlisle of this period was Frederick (grandfather of the 
present Earl), the relative and guardian of Lord Byron. The poet dedicated 
to him his Hours of Idleness, vilified him in his famous satire, and apologized 
in Childe Harold. Lord Carlisle wrote tragedies : The Father's Revenge 
(which Dr. Johnson and Walpole praised), The Step-Mother, and various 
Poems. He came to America during the Revolutionary war, fellow-commis- 
sioner with William Eden (Lorcf Auckland), and Governor Johnstone, with 
offers of peace, and was challenged by La Fayette, for terms used in the Ad- 
dress to Congress, derogatory to France. In Jesse's " Selwyn and his Contem- 
poraries," there are numerous agreeable letters of Carlisle — among them two, 
written from Philadelphia and New York, with notices of "Mr. Washington," 
and the war, which were pleasantly introduced by Mr. Thackeray, in his 
recent lecture on George III. Lord Carlisle died in 1825. at the age of 
seventy-seven. 



HOUSEKEEPING HUMOURS. 53 

In the midst of all embarrassments, however, Foston was not 
an unhappy home. The humours of its lord had full play. He 
was the hero of domestic life, his resources — his kindness, his 
wit, his personal humour, never failing. Numerous anecdotes of 
this nature are preserved in the narrative of his daughter— the 
charm of whose work is its thoroughly woman's picture of the 
household habits, which, after all, stamp the man. They may be 
briefly summed up in his art of happiness ; his industry, constant 
self-culture, a curious fondness for the minutiae of the menage, 
attention to the common duties of life, care of his parishioners, 
attachment of his servants, and the cement of those noble friend- 
ships which brought Horner, Mackintosh, Jeffrey, the Hollands, 
Rogers, to his hospitable home — an inviting baiting-place for these 
keen appreciators of wit and good-nature, which he characteristi- 
cally christened the Rector's Head. 

Within doors he made good taste and original management 
do the work of wealth in promoting comfort. He contrived cheap 
decorations for his windows, his ceilings, and his fireplaces, in- 
geniously brightening his fires by a ventilating aperture. His 
bed-rooms were placarded with unframed prints, full of elevating 
suggestions. The arrangements of his store-room and apothe- 
cary's shop were among the curiosities of the place. Out of doors 
his management was quite as peculiar. He oddly economized 
time in farming his acres, by the use of " a tremendous speaking 
trumpet" at his door, with the supplement of a spy-glass, to bring 
the operations under view. His humanity to his cattle was shown 
in a way said to have been practised by a Duke of Argyle, in 
alleviating the distressed cuticles of his irritated tenantry. He set 
up a skeleton machine in the midst of a field, ingeniously arranged 
for every four-footed creature to rub against, which he called his 
Universal Scratcher. He carried his household to church, a mile 
distant from the parsonage, through the miry clay, more success- 
fully than the family of the Vicar of Wakefield, in the adventure 
of Blackberry and the pillion, in his old furbished-up carriage, the 



54 . BUNCH. 

Immortal, drawn by his cart-horse in shafts, and guided by the 
carter on foot. At the barn-like church fifty persons were, on one 
occasion, probably an average one, present. 

The portrait of Bunch, that important portion of the Foston 
family, is immortal ; a sketch from reality equal to the imagina- 
tion of Dickens. Mrs. Marcet, the author of the Conversations 
on Political Economy, an old friend of the host, exhibits her in 
full play : — 

" I was coming down stairs one morning, when Mr. Smith sud- 
denly said to Bunch, who was passing, i Bunch, do you like roast 
duck or boiled chicken ?' Bunch had probably never tasted either 
the one or the other in her life, but answered, without a moment's 
hesitation, ' Eoast duck, please, sir,' and disappeared. I laughed. 
i You may laugh,' said he, ' but you have no idea of the labour it 
has cost me to give her that decision of character. The Yorkshire 
peasantry are the quickest and shrewdest in the world, but you 
can never get a direct answer from them ; if you ask them even 
their own names, they always scratch their heads, and say, c A 's 
sur ai don't knaw, sir ;' but I have brought Bunch to such perfec- 
tion, that she never hesitates now on any subject, however difficult. 
I am very strict with her. Would you like to hear her repeat 
her crimes ? She has them by heart, and repeats them every day.' 
1 Come here, Bunch !' calling out to her, i come and repeat your 
crimes to Mrs. Marcet ;' and Bunch, a clean, fair, squat, tidy little 
girl, about ten or twelve years of age, quite as a matter of course, 
as grave as a judge, without the least hesitation, and with a loud 
voice, began to repeat: 'Plate-snatching, gravy-spilling, door- 
slamming, blue-bottle-fly-catching, and courtesy-bobbing.' i Ex- 
plain to Mrs. Marcet what blue-bottle-fly-catching is.' ' Standing, 
with my mouth open and not attending, sir.' ' And what is court- 
esy-bobbing ? ' Courtesying to the centre of the earth, please, 
sir.' ' Good girl ! now you may go.' ' She makes a capital 
waiter, I assure you ; on state occasions Jack Robinson, my car- 
penter, takes off his apron and waits too, and does pretty well, but 



GILDED PILLS. 55 

he sometimes naturally makes a mistake and sticks a gimlet into 
the bread instead of a fork.' " 

Mrs. Marcet also supplies to the " Memoir" some pleasing anec- 
dotes of those medical traits, the foundation of which had been 
laid at Edinburgh. Sydney is taking her the rounds of his Fos- 
ton parsonage : — 

" i But I came up to speak to Annie Kay. Where is Annie 
Kay ? Ring the bell for Annie Kay.' Kay appeared. l Bring 
me my medicine-book, Annie Kay. Kay is my apothecary's boy, 
and makes up my medicines.' Kay appears with the book. ' I 
am a great doctor ; would you like to hear some of my medicines ?' 
i Oh yes, Mr. Sydney.' ' There is the gentlejog, a pleasure to 
take it — the Bull-dog, for more serious cases — Peter's puke — 
Heart's delight, the comfort of all the old women in the village — 
Rub-a-dub, a capital embrocation — Dead-stop, settles the matter 
at once — Up -with-it-then needs no explanation; and so on. 
Now, Annie Kay, give Mrs. Spratt a bottle of Rub-a-dub ; and to 
Mr. Coles a dose of Dead-stop and twenty drops of laudanum.' 

" ' This is the house to be ill in,' turning to us ; 6 indeed every- 
body who comes is expected to take a little something ; I consider 
it a delicate compliment when my guests have a slight illness here. 
We have contrivances for everything. Have you seen my patent 
armour ? No ? Annie Kay bring my patent armour. Now, look 
here : if you have a stiff-neck or swelled-face, here is this sweet 
case of tin filled with hot water, and covered with flannel, to put 
round your neck, and you are well directly. Likewise, a patent 
tin shoulder, in case of rheumatism. There you see a stomach- 
tin, the greatest comfort in life ; and lastly, here is a tin slipper, 
to be filled with hot water, which you can sit with in the drawing- 
room, should you come in chilled, without wetting your feet. 
Come and see my apothecary's shop.' 

"We all went down stairs, and entered a room filled entirely on 
one side with medicines, and on the other with every description 
of groceries and household or agricultural nei 



56 LOBSTER SAUCE. 

centre, a large chest, forming a table, and divided into compart- 
ments for soap, candles, salt, and sugar. 

" ' Here you see/ said he, ' every human want before you :— 

" 'Man wants but little here below, 

As beef, veal, mutton, pork, lamb, venison show ;' 

spreading out his arms to exhibit everything, and laughing." 

Sydney Smith wrote a great deal about prisons and prisoners, 
crimes and penalties, and justice's justice. It is of positive value 
that we have this account of his own management in matters of 
rural police as a Justice of the Peace : — 

" He set vigorously to work to study Blackstone, and made 
himself master of as much law as possible, instead of blundering 
on, as many of his neighbours were content to do. Partly by this 
knowledge, partly by his good-humour, he gained a considerable 
influence in the quorum, which used to meet once a fortnight at 
the little inn, called the Lobster-house ; and the people used to 
say they were ' going to get a little of Mr. Smith's lobster-sauce.' 
By dint of his powerful voice, and a little wooden hammer, he 
prevailed on Bob and Betty to speak one at a time ; he always 
tried, and often succeeded, in turning foes into friends. Having a 
horror of the Game laws, then in full force, and knowing, as he 
states in his speech on the Reform Bill, that for every ten pheas- 
ants which fluttered in the wood one English peasant was rotting 
in jail, he was always secretly on the side of the poacher (much 
to the indignation of his fellow-magistrates, who in a poacher saw 
a monster of iniquity), and always contrived, if possible, to let 
him escape, rather than commit him to jail, with the certainty of 
his returning to the world an accomplished villain. He endeav- 
oured to avoid exercising his function as magistrate in his own 
village when possible, as he wished to be at peace with all his 
parishioners. 

" Young delinquents he never could bear to commit ; but read 
them a severe lecture, and in extreme cases called out, ' John, 



VISITS FRANCE. 57 

bring me my private gallows P which infallibly brought the little 
urchins weeping on their knees, and, ' Oh ! for God's sake, your 
honour, pray forgive us !' and his honour used graciously to pardon 
them for this time, and delay the arrival of the private gallows, 
and seldom had occasion to repeat the threat."* 

Such was the life at Foston, the poverty of a scholar and a coun- 
try clergyman, supported by self-respect. His independence led 
him to make many sacrifices, but he had no hesitation in honour- 
ably accepting a favour. He received a hundred a year from his 
brother Robert, to support his son Douglas at Westminster school ; 
but " Aunt Mary," an old lady, dying not long after, and unexpect- 
edly leaving him a moderate legacy, he at once released his brother 
from the obligation-! Other accessions of prosperity followed, those 
affluent rills which the river is sure to meet with if its course be 
long continued. The neighbouring living of Londesborough, va- 
cant for a short time, was added to his resources by the Earl of 
Carlisle, in 1825, which enabled him to visit Paris the next year. 

The three weeks' journey, as it is recorded in daily letters 
to Mrs. Sydney Smith, supplies one of the most delightful and 
amusing portions of his always profitable and entertaining corres- 
pondence. It is full of the novelty, the gusto and enjoyment of 
the Englishman's or American's first pleasant impressions of the 
Continent, when everything appears gayer, brighter, better than 
ever before, and the senses are feasted by the brilliant theatrical 
display. Sydney Smith had a happy temperment, never above 
being surprised and delighted. From the moment of his crossing 
the channel his latent Gallic blood is all of a tingle. Calais is full 
of fine sensations. The bedroom at Dessein's is superb, and so is 

* Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 150. 

t To the Countess Grey, Foston, Nov. 21, 1821 : — "An old aunt has died 
and left me an estate in London ; this puts me a little at my ease, and will, 
in some degree save me from the hitherto necessary, but unpleasant practice 
of making sixpence perform the functions and assume the importance of a 
shilling. 

" Part of my little estate is the Guildhall Coffee-house, in King street, Cheap- 
side. I mean to give a ball there. Will you come ? w 

3* 



58 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 

the dinner. "I wish you could see me," he writes, with a hus- 
band's and a child's delight, to Mrs. Sydney, "with my wood fire 
and my little bed-room and fine sitting-room." The streets please 
him "exceedingly." Calais "is quite another world, and full of the 
greatest entertainment." As for the propriety and civility of the 
people, " I have not seen," he says, " a cobbler who is not better 
bred than an English gentleman." Everything is better than in 
England. The tea is better, the cookery "admirable;" and after 
a day's surfeit on the raree show, he throws himself to profound 
slumber "on a charming bed." One thing only is wanting — the 
presence of Mrs. Sydney and the family. They are well re- 
membered. "You shall all see France; I am resolved upon that;" 
and again, "I most sincerely hope, one day or another, to conduct 
you all over it; the thought of doing so is one of my greatest 
pleasures in travelling." Paris, at which he arrives in a day or 
two, is great, but perhaps not quite equal to Calais. Under the in- 
fluence of those rose-coloured first impressions, a hovel at the sea- 
board rivals a palace at Versailles, and a signboard a masterpiece 
at the Louvre. How many thousand Americans have been so over- 
come, on arriving at Havre, after a sea-voyage, by the raree show, 
and how human, caustic, witty, Sydney Smith appears in writing 
down all this nonsensical delusion — this capital trick of the Gallic 
puppets and scenery. At Paris we see the same process. Sydney 
takes lodgings in the Bne St. Honore: — "My sitting-room is su- 
perb; my bed-room, close to it, very good; there is a balcony 
which looks upon the street. * * I am exceedingly pleased 
with everything I have seen at the hotel, and it will be, I think, 
[to Mrs. Sydney] here we shall lodge." Rather too fast this. The 
next letter has an amendment, with an apology for undue haste in 
locating the future air-castle — "of course, my opinions, from my 
imperfect information, are likely to change every day ; but at pres- 
ent I am inclined to think that I ought to have gone, and that we 
will go, to the Boulevards." Then comes a course of dinners, under 
the auspices of the Holland family; talk, gossip, and visits. The 



CELEBRITIES. 59 

wonder becomes less wonderful, and admiration, still kept up, is 
here and there chilled by criticism. First impressions need re- 
vision. A confession of the dinner table has a wider application 
out-of-doors than its admirable individual lessons within. " I dined 
with Lord Holland; there was at table Barras, the Ex-Director, 
in whose countenance I immediately discovered all the signs of 
blood and cruelty which distinguished his conduct. I found out, 
however, at the end of dinner, that it was not Barras, but M. de 
Barente, an historian and man of letters, who, I believe, has never 
killed anything greater than a flea." Sir Sidney Smith, the Ad- 
miral, was then in Paris, and there is some pleasant confusion be- 
tween the two celebrities. The clerical Sydney meets Talleyrand, 
Humboldt and Cuvier ; sees Mars and Talma at the theatre, at- 
tends the opera ; finds Charles X. growing very old since he dined 
with him at the Duke of Buccleugh's, in Scotland, and acting very 
foolishly in his government, which leads to the prophecy, soon to 
.be fulfilled, that "if this man lives, another revolution is inevit- 
able." The local pictures are exquisite. "It is curious to see in 
what little apartments a French savant lives ; you find him at his 
books, covered with snuff, with a little clog that bites your legs." 
"The Parisians are very fond of adorning their public fountains: 
sometimes water pours forth from a rock, sometimes trickles from 
the jaws of a serpent. The dull and prosaic English turn a brass 
cock or pull out a plug. What a nation I" He finally leaves 
France, having purchased for himself the coat-of-arms of a French 
peer, on a seal, which took his fancy, as he professed, for family 
use,* a " Cuisinier Bourgeois," and some rolls of French paper, to 

* Smith was fond of joking on this subject, as on all others, for that mat- 
ter. Lady Holland has the following anecdote of Combe Florcy, some years 
later : — " He was writing one morning in his favourite bay-window, when a 
pompous little man, in rusty black, was ushered in. 'May I ask what pro- 
cures me the honour of this visit V said my father. ' Oh/ said the little man, 
'I am compounding a history of the distinguished families in Somersetshire, 
and have called to obtain the Smith arms.' 'I regret, sir,' said my father, 
'nottot>e able to contribute to so valuable a work ; but the Smiths never 
had any arms, and have invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs.' " 



60 BRISTOL. 

add a cheap magnificence to the humble Foston. So closed this 
charming episode in the life of the north country Rector. It may 
be here added that Sydney Smith did carry out his good intention 
of taking Mrs. Sydney to Paris. The visit came off in the autumn 
of 1835. Dessein's hotel, at Calais, was still magnificent; Rouen 
afforded a glowing sensation ; gentlemen and ladies in blouses and 
caps were as common on the streets as before ; the cookery of 
Paris had a nicer appreciation from a palate which had been much 
cultivated by London dinners in the interval : — " I shall not easily," 
he writes to Lady Grey, "forget a matelote at the Rocher de 
Cancale and almond tart at Montreuil, or a poulet a la Tartare, at 
Grignon's. These are impressions which no change in future life 
can obliterate."* Sydney Smith crossed the channel once more in 
1837, to visit Holland, but the gout was then the companion of his 
journey, and the rose-coloured atmosphere had vanished. Worldly 
prosperity had advanced, but youth had receded. 

In the beginning of 1828, his youngest daughter was mar- 
ried at York, and in the same month of January, he received 
the prebendal stall at Bristol, intelligence of which was grace- 
fully communicated to him by Lady Lyndhurst. Thither he 
at once removed, and inaugurated his labours by preaching a 
sermon before the startled mayor and corporation, in the Ca- 
thedral, on the fifth of November, Guy Faux's day, in support of 
religious toleration, particularly in reference to the Catholics.f 

* Sydney Smith was not an epicure, in the vulgar sense of the word ; but 
he was undoubtedly something of the gourmet. He knew the value of flavours 
and sauces to life. He seasoned his curate's dish of potatoes, on Salisbury 
Plain, with ketchup ; studied, as we see, the mysteries of taste in Paris, and 
on one occasion (recorded by Dyce, in the Table Talk of Eogers) rose in a 
bravura of fancy to the declaration that "his idea of heaven was eating foie 
gras to the sound of trumpets !" Smith wrote well on temperance, and 
practised it. Fine sayings like these, however, the immortal salad receipt, 
and records of innumerable " dinings out," in the Memoirs and Letters, will 
render his memory fragrant in the traditions of gastronomy. 

t He thus mentions it in a letter to Lord Holland, Bristol, Nov. 5, 1828 :— 
" My dear Lord Holland, To-day I have preached an honest sermon [5th 



CANON OF ST. PAUL'S. 61 

It is published in his works, and remains a plain, simple, sin- 
cere assertion in the words of its title, of " Those Eules of Chris- 
tian Charity, by winch our Opinions of other Sects should be 
formed." The Bristol preferment brought with it a living, and 
Foston-le-Clay was exchanged for the more euphonious Combe 
Florey, situated in a scene of natural beauty, near Taunton; 
in Smith's own description, " a most parsonic parsonage, like those 
described in novels." This increase of prosperity was darkened by 
the death of his son Douglas, in 1829 — a sorrow which accompanied 
the father through life. In his note book of the time, he writes, 
"April 14th, My beloved son Douglas died, aged twenty-four. 
Alas ! alas !" And afterward : " So ends this year of my life — a 
year of sorrow, from the loss of my beloved son Douglas — the first 
great misfortune of my life, and one which I shall never forget." 
Lady Holland adds the touching trait, " in his last hours he often 
called his youngest son by the name of Douglas." 

A year after, his friend Lord Grey having become minister, 
Sydney Smith's cathedral stall at Bristol was exchanged for a 
similar but more profitable post in London, and he became Canon 
Residentiary of St. Paul's.* Combe Florey he still continued to 
hold, and thus, between town and country, " dining with the rich 
in London, and physicking the poor in the country, passing from 
the sauces of Dives to the sores of Lazarus,"f he continued his 
clerical career through life. 

of November] before the Mayor and Corporation, in the Cathedral — the 
most protestant Corporation in England ! They stared at me with all their 
eyes. Several of them could not keep the turtle on their stomachs." 

* The following letter to his friend, Mrs. Meynell, records the event : — 

" Saville Row, September, 1831. 

" My Dear G., I am just stepping into the carriage to be installed by the 
Bishop, but can not lose a post in thanking you. It is, I believe, a very good 
thing, and puts me at my ease for life. I asked for nothing — never did any 
thing shabby to procure preferment. These are pleasing recollections. My 
pleasure is greatly increased by the congratulations of good and excellent 
friends like yourself. God bless you ! " Sydney Smith." 

1 Letter to M. Eugene Robin. Memoir, ii. 497. 



62 COUNTRY PARISHIONERS. 

Nor were his duties at either place neglected. He became a 
most zealous guardian of the church property and affairs at St. 
Paul's, superintending building accounts and expenses toilfully and 
skilfully ; and preaching in his turn, to the close of his life, with 
dignity and eloquence ; while in the summer months, at Combe 
Florey, his heart expanded among his parishioners, whom he at- 
tended with faithful tenderness ; entering into their circumstances, 
and, what is so rare in the world with persons of superior station, 
surveying, with heartfelt sympathy, the cares and enjoyments of 
life on a lower level. Hodge had always, in Sydney Smith, a 
friend, who understood him, and when it was threatened that 
Hodge's beer would be cut off by meddling licensers, or Hodge was 
in danger from the game laws, he had, in his clerical visiter, a use- 
ful protector. Sydney Smith's Advice to Parishioners is worthy 
of the philanthropy, humanity, and good-humoured shrewdness of 
Poor Richard. For Franklin, indeed, Smith entertained a gener- 
ous admiration, and the manners of the two sages were, in many 
things, not unlike. 

To the domestic sketches of Foston, must be added, as a pend- 
ant, this pencilling, by Lady Holland, of "glorified" Combe 
Florey : — " I long to give some sketches of these breakfasts, and 
the mode of life at Combe Florey, where there were often as- 
sembled guests that would have made any table agreeable any- 
where ; but it would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the 
beauty, gayety, and happiness of the scene in which they took 
place, or the charm that he infused into the society assembled 
round his breakfast-table. The room, an oblong, was, as I have 
already described, surrounded on three sides by books, and ended 
in a bay-window, opening into the garden : not brown, dark, dull- 
looking volumes, but all in the brightest bindings ; for he carried 
his system of furnishing for gayety even to the dress of his books. 

" He would come down into this long, low room in the morning 
like a ' giant refreshed to run his course,' bright and happy as the 
scene around him. ' Thank God for Combe Florey ! ' he would 



GLORIFIED COMBE FLOREY. 63 

exclaim, throwing himself in his red arm-chair, and looking around ; 
1 1 feel like a bridegroom in the honeymoon.' And in truth I 
doubt if ever bridegroom felt so joyous, or at least made others 
feel so joyous, as he did on these occasions. ' Ring the bell, 
Saba ;' the usual refrain, by-the-by, in every pause, for he con- 
trived to keep every body actively employed around him, and no- 
body ever objected to be so employed. ' Ring the bell, Saba.' En- 
ter the servant, D . ' D , glorify the room.' This meant 

that the three Venetian windows of the bay were to be flung open, 
displaying the garden on every side, and letting in a blaze of sun- 
shine and flowers. D glorifies the room with the utmost 

gravity, and departs. i You would not believe it,' he said, 'to look 

at him now, but D is a reformed Quaker. Yes, he quaked, 

or did quake ; his brother quakes still : but D is now thorough- 
ly orthodox. I should not like to be a Dissenter in his way ; he is 

to be one of my vergers at St. Paul's some day. Lady B 

calls them my virgins. She asked me the other day, ' Pray, Mr. 
Smith, is it true that you walk down St. Paul's with three virgins 
holding silver pokers before you ?' I shook my head, and looked 
very grave, and bid her come and see. Some enemy of the Church, 
some Dissenter, had clearly been misleading her.' 

" ' There now,' sitting down at the breakfast-table, 6 take a lesson 
of economy. You never breakfasted in a parsonage before, did you ? 
There, you see my china is all white, so if broken can always be 
renewed ; the same with my plates at dinner : did you observe my 
plates ? every one a different pattern, some of them sweet articles ; 
it was a pleasure to dine upon such a plate as I had last night. It 
is true, Mrs. Sydney, who is a great herald, is shocked because 
some of them have the arms of a royal duke or a knight of the 
garter on them, but that does not signify to me. My plan is to 
go into a china shop and bid them show me every plate they 
have which does not cost more than half a crown ; you see the 
result.' " 

Smith's London life, at his residence in Charles street, appears 



64 LONDON RESIDENCE. 

to have been attended by "all that should accompany old age, 
honour, love, obedience, troops of friends," but some faces, alas, were 
missing. Mackintosh, whose memory he fondly cherished, was no 
longer living, and others had fallen in the race. He gained, however, 
the alliance of Dr. Holland,* who married his daughter Saba, in 
1834, and new faces came to cheer him in his home-circle. 

The fifteen years assigned to the Canon of St. Paul's, bore rich 
fruits of his preceding culture and discipline. He had ceased 
contributing to the Edinburgh Review, having penned his last 
article — it was on the Catholic Question — in 1827. He now 
thought it decorous that a Church dignitary should appear openly 
to the world in his writings, and not shelter himself under the 
anonymous. His pen, however, was not idle, and he stood forth 
still, as ever, in pamphlets and letters to the newspapers, a 
champion of liberal interests, and of the rights of his order. 

Having been thrown, upon his first arrival at Bristol, in 1830, into 
the midst of the violent agitations of the times, he met the crisis 
by his practical earnest advice to the uninstructed laboring classes, 
and his more resolute warnings to the exclusive politicians. To 
enlighten the poor on the value of machinery, which they were 
bent upon destroying, he published several cheap tracts, entitled 
" Letters to Swing ;" while at county Reform meetings at Taunton, 
he levelled several most vigorous speeches at the pressing evils of 
the representative system. In one of these occurs his now world 
renowned introduction of Mrs. Partington. 

The most notable of all Sydney Smith's writings on the affairs 
of the Establishment, were his three Letters addressed to Arch- 
deacon Singleton, the first of which appeared in 1837, and the 

* Sir Henry Holland, eminent for his literary and philosophical, as well as 
professional attainments. He took his degree of M. D. at Edinburgh, in 1809. 
In the summer of 1810 he visited Iceland, in company with Sir George Mac- 
kenzie, to whose book of travels in the island he contributed the Preliminary 
Dissertation and the article on Education and Literature. His " Travels in 
the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia, &c, during the years 1812 
and 1813," were received with favour on their publication in 1819. 



CATHEDRAL LETTERS. 65 

others at intervals of about a year. They relate to the affairs of 
the Whig Ecclesiastical Commission, then sitting, and chiefly to its 
attempted invasions of Cathedral endowments and patronage. It 
was proposed, among other things, to assist the revenues of the 
poorer clergy, by taking from a number of the larger benefices 
pecuniary advantages, to form a fund for the augmentation of 
small livings. The prebendal stalls of St. Paul's, in particular, 
were exposed to the shears of the projected bill. They were to 
be diminished in number, and their emoluments curtailed. Sydney 
Smith came forth resolutely to the rescue. As it was a commis- 
sion of Bishops in which Deans and Chapters were not repre- 
sented, and as Episcopal revenues were not to be touched, the 
Bishops were made to feel the full force of his wit and argument. 
There is some very plain talk addressed to the Bishop of London, 
the learned Blomfield, whose passion for government is made to 
appear a virtue in excess. " Here it is," Smith exclaims, citing a 
charge of rashness against the Bishop's classical emendations, 
" qualis ah incejpto. He begins with .ZEschylus, and ends with the 
Church of England ; begins with profane, and ends with holy in- 
novations—scratching out old readings which every commentator 
had sanctioned, abolishing ecclesiastical dignities which every re- 
former had spared ; thrusting an anapaest into a verse which will not 
bear it ; and intruding a Canon into a Cathedral which does not want 
it." The handling of the Bishop of Gloucester, Dr. Monk, who 
threw into the discussion an attack upon Sydney Smith, as " a scof- 
fer and jester," is excessively severe, retorting personality for per- 
sonality. There is a very neat example of mingled satire and eulo- 
gy in a page on Lord Melbourne. In these papers, too, occurs the 
celebrated description of Lord John Eussell : " There is not a better 
man in England ; but his worst failure is, that he is utterly ignor- 
ant of all moral fear ; there is nothing he would not undertake. 
I believe he would perform the operation for the stone — build 
St. Peter's — or assume (with or without ten minutes' notice), the 
command of the Channel Fleet ; and no one would discover, by 



66 CHAPTER RIGHTS. 

his manner, that the patient had died — the Church tumbled down 
— and the Channel Fleet been knocked to atoms." 

The main argument of the Letters, which shows the Canon 
something of a conservative in the plurality interest, is that the 
reform would be unjust and injurious to the Church. It would 
interfere with vested rights, and, though it might tend to equalize 
the incomes of the clergy, the majority of them would remain very 
small — the individual gain would be trifling, while the great pecu- 
niary and social rewards of the Church would be destroyed. The 
English Establishment, he argued, is, upon the whole, poor, but its 
character is maintained in a country where wealth is essential to 
secure respect by its high prizes. As in the profession of the bar, 
many are induced to enter it, and encounter every early privation 
with the hope of attaining its splendid positions ; which also attract 
many persons of independent incomes, who thus supply the gen- 
eral deficiency of means. Destroy these glittering emoluments, 
and the ground will be occupied by inferior men, low, badly edu- 
cated, and fanatical. "You will have a set of ranting, raving 
Pastors, who will wage war against all the innocent pleasures of 
life, vie with each other in extravagance of zeal, and plague your 
heart out with their nonsense and absurdity: cribbage must be 
played in caverns, and sixpenny whist take refuge in the howling 
wilderness. In this way low men, doomed to hopeless poverty, 
and galled by contempt, will endeavour to force themselves into 
station and significance. " 

The Chapter rights were gallantly and successfully defended 
from behind the entrenchments of St. Paul's, with many a dashing 
sortie and skirmish — without any particular delicacy as to the 
weapon or its stroke — with the Bishops. That his friends, the 
"Whigs, suffered from the force of his logic was but a proof of his 
independent character. It was no desertion of his political prin- 
ciples, but evidence of his constancy to what he had always re- 
garded as the practical welfare of the Church; while he had, 
shortly after, an opportunity of proving to the world how little he 



LIVING OF EDMONTON. 67 

was guided, in this defence, by his private pecuniary interests. A 
perquisite of the Chapter of St. Paul's, the living of Edmonton, 
worth seven hundred pounds a year, fell to his share, on the death 
of his associate, Mr. Tate. According to the usage in such mat- 
ters, it was expected that he would turn the emolument to his own 
advantage. He generously conferred the whole on the son of the 
late incumbent. The incident is so characteristically narrated by 
him, in a letter addressed to his wife, that it would be injustice to 
the reader not to present the scene in his own words : " I went 
over, yesterday, to the Tates at Edmonton. The family consists 
of three delicate daughters, an aunt, the old lady, and her son, 
then curate of Edmonton ; the old lady was in bed. I found there 
a physician, an old friend of Tate's, attending them from friend- 
ship, who had come from London for that purpose. They were 
in daily expectation of being turned out from house and curacy. 
... I began by inquiring the character of their servant ; .then 
turned the conversation upon their affairs, and expressed a hope 
the Chapter might ultimately do something for them. I then said, 
6 It is my duty to state to you (they were all assembled) that I 
have given away the living of Edmonton ; and have written to 
our Chapter clerk this morning, to mention the person to whom I 
have given it ; and I must also tell you, that I am sure he will 
appoint his curate. (A general silence and dejection.) It is a 
very odd coincidence,' I added, ' that the gentleman I have selected 
is a namesake of this family ; his name is Tate. Have you any 
relations of that name ?' ' No, we have not/ ' And, by a more 
singular coincidence, his name is Thomas Tate ; in short,' I added, 
4 there is no use in mincing the matter, you are vicar of Edmonton.' 
They all burst into tears. It flung me, also, into a great agitation 
of tears, and I wept and groaned for a long time. Then I rose, 
and said I thought it was very likely to end in their keeping a 
buggy, at which we all laughed as violently. 

" The poor old lady, who was sleeping in a garret because she 
could not bear to enter into the room lately inhabited by her 



68 THE BALLOT. 

husband, sent for me and kissed me, sobbing with a thousand 
emotions. The charitable physician wept too. ... I never passed 
so remarkable a morning, nor was more deeply impressed with 
the sufferings of human life, and never felt more thoroughly the 
happiness of doing good." 

A pamphlet on the Ballot was the most important of Sydney 
Smith's later productions. It appeared in 1839, when the subject 
was much agitated by the liberals. He opposed its introduction 
with his usual ingenuity and pertinacity of argument, considering 
it ineffective in reaching the evil, interference with the freedom 
of voting, it was set forth to cure. He regards it as inimical to 
moral courage, a foe to just responsibility and good example ; 
citing, with unction, a reply of John Randolph, at a dinner-party 
in London, to the question whether ballot prevailed in his state of 
Virginia. " I scarcely believe," replied the American orator, " we 
have such a fool in all Virginia, as to mention, even, the vote by 
ballot ; and I do not hesitate to say, that the adoption of the ballot 
would make any nation a nation of scoundrels, if it did not find 
them so." "John Randolph," continues Sydney Smith, "was 
right ; he felt that it was not necessary that a people should be 
false in order to be free ; universal hypocrisy would be the conse- 
quence of ballot ; we should soon say, on deliberation, what David 
only asserted in his haste, that all men were liars'' It is curious 
to note the matter-of-fact way in which it is taken for granted, 
that the landlord will, in some way, control his tenants. In Amer- 
ica, where the ballot, though generally prevalent, is not universal, 
he asserts, " it is nearly a dead letter ; no protection is wanted : if 
the ballot protects any one it is the master, not the man." One 
of the difficulties urged, in the use of the ballot, is its defeat of 
a reliable system of registration, by which contested returns might 
be settled. At the close of the essay, the argument of which rests, 
as usual with him, greatly on local expediency, he expresses his 
distrust of what he regarded as a concomitant of the measure in 
England, the demand for universal suffrage. 



PENNSYLVANIA BONDS. 69 

The occurrence of the railway disaster, by fire, at Versailles, in 
1842, when a number of lives were lost, in consequence of a regu- 
lation by which the passengers were locked in the cars, drew forth 
from Smith several characteristic letters on the subject, addressed 
to The Morning Chronicle and Sir Eobert Peel. 

The year 1843 produced Sydney Smith's famous Petition to 
Congress, and Letters on American Debts. The failure of several 
States in the midst of financial embarrassments, to make provision 
for the payment of interest due on bonds, with whatever extenu- 
ating circumstances it may have been attended, was a pressing 
evil. Judged by the lower test of expediency, it was a political 
blunder. The delay, fortunately, was soon enough terminated, in 
most of the cases, to ward off the severe verdict of the world 
which would have attended upon persistance in the neglect. 
Smith was the holder of certain Pennsylvania Bonds. He missed 
his semi-annual interest on pay-day ; heard talk of the ill word 
" repudiation," and took up his pen in illustration of the sound prin- 
ciples of pecuniary obligation and national faith. The cause was 
just, and his wit was trenchant. He made the most of the subject, 
as he had a right to do ; indeed, he made so much of it, that the 
laugh was rather turned against him, when it was found over how 
slight a personal loss he had contrived to raise so loud a storm of indig- 
nation. He sold his shares at a discount, and was damaged a small 
matter by the operation. The principle, however, was the same. 
If the "drab-coloured men" had taken but two pence in the spirit of 
robbery, they would have been justly exposed to the vituperatives of 
all the languages of the civilized world. Sydney Smith's extrava- 
gance of statement and exaggerating invective, the riot of his 
humour, while increasing the efficiency, abated, however, from the 
acerbity of his denunciations. As to the principle involved, there 
could be but one opinion for both sides of the Atlantic ; and it was 
generally considered, on this side, that Sydney Smith's Letters did 
good service. In other days, when America had been in need of 
English opinion, Sydney Smith, it should not be forgotten, had 



70 A SQUIB. 

stood forth her resolute eulogist and champion. It was with him 
that the very complimentary phrase applied to the United States, 
originated, " a magnificent spectacle of human happiness."* The 
entrance of the demon Repudiation on the scene disturbed the 
show.f 

* Article, America, Ed. Eev., July, 1824. Letter to Jeffrey, Nov. 23, 1818. 
t There is a stanza in an amusing, though reckless, English squib of the 
time on the topic, introducing Sydney Smith : — 

"A new song to an old tune. 
"Yankee Doodle borrows cash, 

Yankee Doodle spends it, 
And then he snaps his fingers at 

The jolly flat who lends it. 
Ask him when he means to pay, 

He shows no hesitation, 
But says he'll take the shortest way 

And that's Eepudiation ! 

Chorus: Yankee Doodle borrows cash, &e, 

"Yankee vows that every State 

Is free and independent: 
And if they paid each other's debts, 

There'd never be an end on't. 
They keep distinct till "settling" comes, 

And then throughout the nation 
They all become "United States" 

To preach Repudiation ! 

"Lending cash to Illinois, 

Or to Pennsylvania, 
Florida, or Mississippi, 

Once was quite a mania. 
Of all the States 'tis hard to say 

Which makes the proudest show, sirs, 
But Yankee seems himself to like 

The State of O-I-owe, sirs. 

The reverend joker of St. Paul's 

Don't relish much their plunder, 
And often at their knavish tricks 

Has hurled his witty thunder. 
But Jonathan by nature wears 

A hide of toughest leather, 
Which braves the sharpest-pointed darts 

And canons put together ! 



XANTIPPE. 71 

The Pennsylvania bonds supplied a frequent theme to Sydney 
Smith, in his conversations and letters, grave and gay. He read 
the American papers, and found himself a well-abused man: 
" The Americans, I see," he said, " call me a Minor Canon. They 
are abusing me dreadfully to-day : they call me Xantippe ; they 
might, at least, have known my sex : and they say I am eighty- 
four." To the Countess Grey, he writes : " There is nothing in 
the crimes of kings worse than this villainy of democracy." To 
Mrs. Grote : " My bomb has fallen very successfully in America, 
and the list of killed and wounded is extensive. I have several 
quires of paper sent me every day, calling me monster, thief, 
atheist, deist, etc. Duff Green sent me three pounds of cheese, 
and a Captain Morgan a large barrel of American apples." 

A Captain Morgan is the Captain Morgan, of New York, late 
of the packet ship Southampton, whose genial personal qualities, 

"He tells 'em they are clapping on 

Their credit quite a stopper, 
And when they come to go to war 

They'll never raise a copper. 
If that's the case, they coolly say, 

Just as if to spite us, 
They'd better stop our dividends, 

And hoard 'em up to fight us ! 

"What's the use of moneyed friends 

If you mustn't bleed 'em % 
Ours, I guess, says Jonathan, 

The country is of freedom ! 
And what does freedom mean, if not 

To whip our slaves at pleasure 
And borrow money when you can, 

To pay it at your leisure? 

"Great and free Amerikee 

With all the world is vying, 
That she the " land of promise" is 

There's surely no denying. 
But be it known henceforth to all, 

Who hold their I. 0. U. sirs, 
A Yankee Doodle promise is 

A Yankee Doodle do, sirs \" 



72 APPLES FEOM A SOLVENT STATE. 

appreciated by many Atlantic travellers and intimates at home, 
have long endeared him to such honourable literary and artistic 
friends and acquaintances abroad, as Dickens, Thackeray, Leslie 
and his brother-artists of the Sketching Club of London. To 
Captain Morgan we are indebted for the two following letters, now 
first published, addressed to him by Sydney Smith — touching the 
apples aforesaid, and American obligations generally. The first, 
which we also present, in a fac-simile of the original, is dated at 
the writer's London residence, in December, 1843. It reads : " Sir : 
I am much obliged by your present of Apples, which I consider 
as apples of Concord not discord. I have no longer any pecuniary 
interest that your countrymen should pay their debts — but as a 
sincere friend to America, I earnestly hope they may do so." 
The other is dated Combe Florey, January 14, 1844: "Sir: I 
should have written long since to have thanked you for your 
Apples, but unfortunately lost your address. It lately occurred to 
me, that I could find you by means of our friend, Mr. Bates. The 
apples have been eaten with universal applause, after I had as- 
sured the company that they came from a Solvent State. My 
opinion (worth something, not much), is, that Pennsylvania will 
not pay. I heard my friend Stokes upon the subject, but his facts 
and his arguments led me to conclusions very opposite to his own. 
I sincerely hope that you have only a theoretical interest in the 
subject." 

In spite of skepticism, the apples were doubtless eaten with good 
will. Sydney Smith, though tenacious of his satire and his jests, 
listened with interest to the representations of Mr. Edward 
Everett, then in England, and read with satisfaction the fair-minded 
letter published by Mr. George Ticknor in the Boston Daily Ad- 
vertiser.* 

It was this year, 1843, which brought to the Canon of St. Paul's, 
too late in life to add much to his usefulness or enjoyments, a large 
increase of wealth. His brother Courtenay died without a will, 
* It is given in La#y Holland's Memoir, pp. 264-268. 




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BREAKING UP. 73 

and Sydney, at the age of seventy-two, inherited one third of an 
estate of a hundred thousand pounds. 

Sydney Smith had now arrived at that period of life, in which 
in general, there is little for a man to do but tc fold his robes about 
him and leave the stage with decorum. Though retaining his fac- 
ulties to the last with unabated mental vigour, the premonitions of 
disease warned him of the grave. * i m going slowly," he writes 
to a friend in 1836, " down the hill of life. One evil in old age 
is, that as your time is come, you think every little illness is the 
beginning of the end. When a man expects to be arrested, every 
knock at the door is an alarm." TLv, gout paid him several such 
domiciliary visits before the final summons. He was not what is 
called a martyr to the disease, but he felt its sting. He jests on 
the subject in his correspondence with his friend and fellow-victim, 
Sir George Philips,* and bears up bravely under the infliction. In 
the history of suffering, pain has been no unfrequent stimulant of 
wit. The season before his death he said " I feel so weak, both 
in body and mind, that I verily believe, if the knife were put into my 
hand, I should not have strength or energy enough to stick it into 
a Dissenter." Under the last regimen of his physician, he said to 
his friend General Fox, " Ah, Charles ! I wish I were allowed 
even the wing of a roasted butterfly." Such things had once set 
the table on the roar. The jest cost more now. 

It is pleasant to note how kindly the old humourist carries 
himself to the last in his letters to his female friends. The novels 
of Dickens, for which he had a genuine appreciation, were among 
his latest enjoyments. The infirmities of age, with intermissions 

•'* A more benevolent man," says Hayclon, in his Diary, "never lived 
than Sir George Philips." He advanced five hundred guineas to the artist 
for his picture of Christ in the Garden. Smith visited Philips at his seat near 
Manchester, when the host revelled in his guest's humour. " He was inces- 
santly stimulating him to attack him," says Lady Holland, " which my father 
certainly did most vigorously ; yet I believe no one present enjoyed these at- 
tacks more than Sir George himself, who laughed at them almost to exhaus- 
tion." Philips died in 1847, at the age of eighty-one. 

4 



74 THE END. 

of comfort, crept steadily on, and in October, 1844, a last attack, 
an affection of water on the chest, consequent on disease of the 
heart, seized its victim in the country at Combe Florey. He was 
removed to town, was attended by his beloved son-in-law, Dr. 
Holland, and by his nurse, Annie Kay, who had been with him 
since the old days at Foston. Earl Grey sent him messages of 
sympathy from his own death-bed. In one of his last hours the 
wonted fire of the preacher of St. Paul's burst forth in the recita- 
tion of a touching and eloquent passage from his sermon on 
Biches. " One evening," his daughter, Lady Holland, tells us, 
" when the room was half darkened, and he had been resting long 
in silence, and I thought him asleep, he suddenly burst forth, in a 
voice so strong and full that it startled us — 'We talk of human 
life as a journey, but how variously is that journey performed ! 
There are some who come forth girt, and shod, and mantled, 
to walk on velvet lawns and smooth terraces, where every gale 
is arrested, and every beam is tempered. There are others 
who walk on the Alpine path of life, against driving misery, 
and through stormy sorrows, over sharp afflictions ; walk with 
bare feet, and naked breast, jaded, mangled, and chilled.' " But 
these inequalities of life were now over. He had arrived at the 
common level of mortality. The end had come. He calmly 
met death the 22d of February, 1845. His remains were laid in 
the cemetery of Kensal Green. The tomb upon which his epitaph 
is written has also an inscription to the memory of his son Douglas ; 
and there, too, rests all that was mortal of his wife who soon fol- 
lowed him to the grave.* 

In person, Sydney Smith, as he has been described to us by 
those who knew him, was of the medium height ; plethoric in habit 
though of great activity, of a dense brown complexion, a dark ex- 

=* Sydney Smith's personal property was sworn under £80,000. His wife, 
for whom liberal provision was made, was sole executrix of his will. There 
was a legacy of £30,000 to his son Wyndham, and his servants were men- 
tioned in several bequests. 



ORIGINAL PORTRAIT. 75 

pressive eye, an open countenance, indicative of shrewdness, hu- 
mour, and benevolence. There is a look, too, in the English en- 
graved portraits, of a thoughtful seriousness. A certain heaviness 
in his figure was neutralized by constitutional vivacity. His 
" sense, wit, and clumsiness," said a college companion, gave " the 
idea of an Athenian carter." He once sat to his friend, Gilbert 
Stuart Newton, for an abbot, in a painting. 

Newton made a portrait of Smith, representing him in the later 
period of life when all his faculties were mellowed and refined. 
It was while in attendance upon the artist for this picture, on a 
warm day, that the wit remarked he would prefer to take off his 
flesh and sit in his bones !* After Newton's death the portrait 
was brought to America by his widow. In 1847, a copy was 
made from it for Captain E. E. Morgan, by Miss Ann Leslie, sis- 
ter of the well-known artist. Not long after, the original was de- 
stroyed by fire. The copy has been kindly lent to us by its owner, 
and the engraving placed as the frontispiece to the present volume 
is made after it. 

The practical, sound, every-day, working character of Sydney 
Smith's life, is its greatest lesson. He united in a rare manner 

* The jest, a thing not uncommon with humourists, seems to have done 
duty on another occasion. We have this report of it among various scraps 
of conversation, in Lady Holland's Memoir (p. 238), with the pleasant addi- 
tion of Mrs. Jackson's wonderment : — 

" Nothing amuses me more than to observe the utter want of perception 
of a joke in some minds. Mrs. Jackson called the other day, and spoke of 
the oppressive heat of last week. ' Heat, ma'am V I said, ' it was so dreadful 
here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and 
sit in my bones.' ' Take off your flesh and sit in your bones, sir ! Oh ! Mr. 
Smith! how could you do that?' she exclaimed, with the utmost gravity. 
' Nothing more easy, ma'am ; conic and see next time.' But she ordered her 
carriage, and evidently thought it a very unorthodox proceeding." 

There is another anecdote of Newton's studio. The artist was engaged in 
painting a portrait of Moore, which the poet took Smith, from a breakfast 
With Rogers, to see. ' Couldn't you contrive," said Sydney, in his gravest 
manner to Newton, " to throw into his face somewhat of a stronger expression 
of hostility to the Church Establishment?" (Moore's Diary, May 27, 182G.) 



76 CHARACTERISTICS. 

the virtues of the optimist and the reformer. An ardent devotee 
of human happiness, he did not destroy life to improve it ; nor did 
he ever cease to oppose evils in the way of its prosperity. While 
he appears taking his ease in that great inn, the world, enjoying 
himself and communicating pleasure to others, he is quarrelling 
with all sorts of injustice in high places ; contending for the peasant 
and the labourer ; advocating the rights of accused criminals, with 
a word for poor chimney-sweeps ; reading lessons to squires, par- 
liament men and bishops ; battling for religious and political free- 
dom. He fought a long fight with dullness, pedantry, prejudice, 
private and political interest, and came off conqueror. His honest 
laugh rang through the whole field. An instinctive genius, the 
inspiration of common sense, was his weapon. He had an advan- 
tage of position too in favour of his wit and his reforms in fighting 
under the protection and in defence of the established Church ; for 
the best reformer is not all reformer. He must have some point of 
support, or how can he wage war with success ? Where can he de- 
posit the fruits of victory ? There are noisy reformers who cut 
themselves loose from all positive institutions, and, like the poets' 
" cats in air-pumps," attempt subsistence in a vacuum. Sydney 
Smith was not one of these empty whims. 

The most genial and conciliatory, he was the most independent 
of men. His independence was, with his other virtues, of a prac- 
tical character ; alike above obsequiousness, indolence and churlish- 
ness. He had a just knowledge of the respect due his faculties 
and attainments, of his claims upon the society to which he be- 
longed, his party and his church. On proper occasions he asserted 
them in a manly way ; when they were not acknowledged he bore 
the loss philosophically, and even sported with his misfortunes. 
There was no misanthropy in his disposition. 

In the art of getting on in the world, he was certainly not indif- 
ferent to the main chance, while his life affords an illustration of 
the benevolence of men of moderate means. During a consider- 
able part of his career in narrow circumstances, and compelled to 



INDEPENDENCE. 77 

economy, whether selling his wife's jewels, preaching at chapels, 
lecturing, reviewing, eking out a curate's humbleness by drafts on 
humour and imagination, he is constantly doing liberal acts ; a man 
of charity and beneficence ; bestowing free-will offerings from a 
life of self-denial and honourable industry ; contributions which a 
generous nature extorted from a stock almost too small for home 
necessities. 

Independence of opinion and of fortune he valued most highly, 
and pursued steadily and successfully, the one for the other, the 
inferior for the superior. In the wisdom of Burns the poet's 
manly Epistle, he " assiduously waited " upon Fortune and gathered 
wealth — 

" Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
Nor for a train attendant, 
But for the glorious privilege 
Of being independent." 

He had the courage in a luxurious, artificial society, where weak 
men are crushed by conventionalisms, of appearing what he was 
and spending no more than he could afford. An instance of 
his business punctilio in pecuniary obligations occurs in one of his 
letters to his early friend Mr. Beach. The latter had a small sum 
of money left in his hands on settlement with his son's tutor. Mr. 
Beach credits the account with five per cent, interest. Sydney in- 
sists positively that it must be but four, and will be under no obli- 
gation for any more.* 

His personal independence was shown in many instances during 
the period of his alliance with a political party out of office ; an 
association unfriendly to his clerical advancement. In a less pub- 
lic light it was exhibited in the manly freedom of his intercourse 
with his friends. His wit spared none of their absurdities. His 
letters, frequently models of courtesy and compliment, are always 
frank and truthful. 

This resolute self-possession, though based on brave, natural 

* Fourth English edition of the Memoirs, i. 109. 



78 HOPEFULNESS. 

qualities, and developed with freedom, was also an affair of convic- 
tion and the will. Bashfulness is one of the last qualities which 
would be assigned to Sydney Smith, but we read that he was shy 
even in his early manhood. His acuteness of mind, however, soon 
corrected the evil. He first discovered, he says, " that all mankind 
were not solely employed in observing him, as all young people 
think, and that shamming was of no use, the world being very 
clear-sighted, and soon estimating a man at his just value. This 
cured me, and I determined to be natural, and let the world find 
me out."* 

Subsidiary to this personal courage was his hopeful way of look- 
ing at the world. He was always practising and inculcating the 
disposition. " Some very excellent people," he said, " tell you 
they dare not hope. To me it seems much more impious to dare 
to despair." He had an excellent rule for the happiness and wis- 
dom of life as to the future, not to look too far into it for inevita- 
ble though probably distant disaster. " Take short views, hope for 
the best, and trust in God."f Inclined by temperament to antici- 
pate coming evils— for our wit, spite of his many jests, was a 
serious man — he resisted the atrabilious tendency, and avoided 
drawing drafts on the misery of futurity. "Never," he said, 
" give way to melancholy ; nothing encroaches more : I Ught 
against it vigorously. One great remedy is, to take short views of 
life. Are you happy now ? Are you likely to remain so till this 
evening ? or next week ? or next month ? or next year ? Then 
why destroy present happiness by a distant misery, which may 
never come at all, or you may never live to see it ? for every sub- 
stantial grief ,has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of 
your own making." It was said of the happy nature of Oliver 
Goldsmith that he had a knack at hoping : with Sydney Smith it 
was a principle. Cheerfulness he made an art. He liked house- 
hold illuminations of a good English coal fire, " the living thing," 
he said, "in a dead room," abundance of lights, flowers on his 

* Mem. i. 77, 324. t lb. i. 167, 117. 



AN ANECDOTE. . 79 

table, prints and pictures on his walls. He was no connoisseur 
in the latter, and if he had been, could not have afforded the grati- 
fication of the taste, but he made poor and cheap pictures do the 
work of good ones by filling up the gap between with his sport and 
imagination. 

There is a highly characteristic anecdote of the man, illustrating 
his habitual regard to human happiness, and his frequ ent solicitude 
for the natural welfare of children. The story is thus told by his 
daughter, Lady Holland : " One of his little children, then in delicate 
health, had for some time been in the habit of waking suddenly every 
evening ; sobbing, anticipating the death of parents, and all the 
sorrows of life, almo:t before life had begun. He could not bear 
this unnatural union of childhood and sorrow, and for a long pe- 
riod, I have heard my mother say, each evening found him, at the 
waking of his child, with a toy, a picture-book, a bunch of grapes, 
or a joyous tale, mixed with a little strengthening advice and the 
tenderest caresses, till the habit was broken, and the child woke to 
joy and not to sorrow." 

The intellectual habits of Sydney Smith were those of a quick, 
keen, sensitive nature, prompt to receive impressions, apt to 
decide upon them, cautious of its convictions, never driven at 
random. Impatient of restraint, ardent and vivacious, he was re- 
markable for his self-knowledge, and the discriminating use of his 
powers. He did not over-estimate them or under-estimate them ; 
he knew precisely what he could do ; the weight of the projectile, 
the momentum, the effect. 

His habits of reading were somewhat peculiar. He read many 
books, and was content, on principle, to secure the best use of his 
faculties, to remain ignorant of many others. He was constantly 
looking into his stock of knowledge and strengthening his defences 
on the weak points. In this way lie laid up a large store of prac- 
tical, working information. His directness and vivacity of mind 
led him at once to the essential points of a subject. He plucked 
out the heart of a series of volumes, in a morning. The happy 



80 • STYLE. 

result may be seen in his reviews, in the Edinburgh, of books of 
travels — his favourite reading. 

He wrote rapidly, making few corrections, a proof of his exact 
discipline of mind, for his writings have that conciseness which 
may be supposed to have required frequent revision. His hand- 
writing, a sign of his impatience, was villainously bad. He de- 
scribed it, in a letter to a gentleman who wished to borrow one of 
his sermons : " I would send it to you with pleasure, but my wri- 
ting is as if a swarm of ants, escaping from an ink-bottle, had walked 
over a sheet of paper without wiping their legs."* It is amusing 
to notice his lectures to Jeffrey, on his cacography, which may be 
attributed to a similar restlessness of mind. 

The clearness and purity of his style are noticeable. It is direct, 
forcible, manly English ; brief without obscurity ; rich without any 
extravagance of ornament ; the unaffected language of a gentleman 
and a scholar. It has a constant tendency to the aphorism — the ripe 
fruit hanging on the tree of knowledge — noticeable in the writings 
of the higher order of men of genius ; the great dramatists, the 
poets generally, Bacon, Burke, Franklin, Landor, and indeed 
most of the classic authors who pass current in the world in quo- 
tation. Wit, indeed, of all the faculties, is the most rapid and 
powerful condenser; it puts volumes into apophthegms; has a 
patent for proverbs ; contracts an essay to an aphorism ; bottles 
an argument in a jest. 

Unless where peculiar Latinized expressions or technical terms 
are intentionally introduced for their witty effect, Smith's language 
is of the purest Saxon. His method is very direct. His meaning 
reaches us pure of all superfluities and pruned of all tediousness. 
It is a style, too, which is essentially his own, a reflex of his keen, 
impulsive, straight-forward character. In his first published ser- 
mons he has been charged with imitating the efforts of Jeremy 
Taylor and others of the old divines ; but this transfusion, which 
appears very slightly, is rather a beauty. When he advanced into 
* Memoirs, i. 174. 



COLLOQUIAL WIT. 81 

the conflict of life he borrowed no weapons from others, but relied 
on his own manly vigour. His style, consequently, is inimitable. 
It is capable of no transpositions or changes. The same meaning 
can be conveyed only in the same words. They are those pictur- 
esque, truthful words ; ready, inevitable to a man of genius ; coy 
of their presence to the dullard. 

The most pervading characteristic of Sydney Smith's writings 
is his wit ; wit blended with the genial humour of the man. It 
breathes from him as the very atmosphere of his nature. 

Lord John Russell, in the preface to one of the volumes of his 
Memoirs of the poet Moore, has happily discriminated the pecu- 
liarities of this omnipresent faculty, as it was developed in society. 
//There are," he says, "two kinds of colloquial wit, which equally 
contribute to fame, though not equally to agreeable conversation. 
The one is like a rocket in a dark air, which shoots at once into 
the sky, and is the more surprising from the previous silence and 
gloom ; the other is like that kind of firework which blazes and 
bursts out in every direction, exploding at one moment, and shin- 
ing brilliantly at another, eccentric in its course, and changing its 
shape and colour to many forms and many hues. Or, as a dinner 
is set out with two kinds of champagne, so these two kinds of wit, 
the still and the sparkling, are to be found in good company. 
Sheridan and Talleyrand were among the best examples of the 
first. Hare * (as I have heard) and Sydney Smith were brilliant 
instances of the second. Hare I knew only by tradition, but with 
Sydney Smith I long lived intimately. His great delight was to 
produce a succession of ludicrous images : these followed each 
other with a rapidity that scarcely left time to laugh ; he himself 

* James Hare, the intimate of Charles James Fox and his circle, the friend 
and correspondent of Selwyn. Few passages of his wit survive his personal 
memory. Jesse (Selwyn and his contemporaries, iii. 285) gives the following 
neat specimen : "He was one day conversing with General Fitzpatrick, when 
the latter affected to discredit the report of General Burgoyno having hecn 
defeated at Saratoga. "Perhaps you maybe right in your opinion," said 
Hare, "but take it from me as allying rumour." 



82 VEIN OF HUMOUR. 

laughing loudest and with more enjoyment than any one. This 
electric contact of mirth came and went with the occasion ; it can- 
not be repeated or reproduced. Anything would give occasion to 
it. For instance, having seen in the newspapers that Sir JEneas 
Mackintosh* was come to town, he drew such a ludicrous carica- 
ture of Sir iEneas and Lady Dido, for the amusement of their 
namesake, that Sir James Mackintosh rolled on the floor in fits of 
laughter, and Sydney Smith, striding across him, exclaimed, 
' Ruat Justitia !' His powers of fun were at the same time united 
with the strongest and most practical common sense. So that 
while he laughed away seriousness at one minute, he destroyed in 
the next some rooted prejudice which had braved for a thousand 
years the battle of reason and the breeze of ridicule. The letters 
of Peter Plymley bear the greatest likeness to Ins conversation ; 
the description of Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown dining at the Court 
of Naples in a volcano coat with lava buttons, and the comparison 
of Mr. Canning to a large blue-bottle fly with its parasites, most 
resemble the pictures he raised up in social conversation. It may 
be averred for certain that in this style he has never been equalled, 
and I do not suppose he will ever be surpassed."! 

In the occasional passages of Moore's Diary in which Sydney 
Smith is mentioned, always under agreeable circumstances, there are 
numerous instances of this peculiar vein of humour, " huddling jest 
upon jest with impossible conveyance," the sagacity apparently 
not inspiring the wit, but the extravagance giving birth to the 
wisdom. At a breakfast at Kogers's, " Smith, full of comicality 
and fancy, kept us all in roars of laughter. In talking of the 
stories about dram-drinkers catching fire, pursued the idea in every 
possible shape. The inconvenience of a man coming too near the 
candle when he was speaking, 'Sir, your observation has caught 

^ Twenty-third laird of the Mackintoshes of that ilk, was created a Baronet 
in 1812. He died in the sixty-ninth year of his age, in 1820, when the Bar- 
onetcy became extinct. " He was a gentleman of the greatest worth/' says 
his obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine. 

t Preface to the Sixth Volume of Memoirs of Thomas Moore, pp. xii-xiv. 



WITTY EXTRAVAGANCE. 83 

fire.' Then imagined a person breaking into a blaze in the pul- 
pit ; the engines called to put him out ; no water to be had, the 
man at the waterworks being a Unitarian or an Atheist." This 
was mostly pure fun. On the same occasion, one of his apparently 
ludicrous sayings displayed a keen wit, with matter for profound 
thought, when he said of some one — " He has no command over his 
understanding ; it is always getting between his legs and tripping 
him up."* Another instance of this humourous amplification in his 
table talk, which is happily related in Lady Holland's Memoir, 
brings the very man before us, "in his habit as he lived:" — 
" Some one mentioned that a young Scotchman, who had been 
lately in the neighbourhood, was about to marry an Irish widow, 
double his age and of considerable dimensions. ' Going to marry 
her !' he exclaimed, bursting out laughing ; ' going to marry her ! 
impossible ! you mean a part of her ; he could not marry her all 
himself. It would be a case, not of bigamy, but trigamy ; the neigh- 
bourhood or the magistrates should interfere. There is enough of 
her to furnish wives for a whole parish. One man marry her ! it 
is monstrous. You might people a colony with her ; or give an 
assembly with her ; or perhaps take your morning s walk round 
her, always provided there were frequent resting-places, and you 
were in rude health, I once was rash enough to try walking 
round her before brc : kfast, but only got half-way and gave it up 
exhausted. Or you might read the Eiot Act and disperse her ; in 
short, you might do anything with her but marry her.' ' Oh, Mr. 
Sydney !' said a young lady, recovering from the general laugh, 
t did you make all that yourself?' ' Yes, Lucy,' throwing himself 
back in his chair and shaking with laughter, ' all myself, child ; all 
my own thunder. Do you think, when I am about to make a joke, 
I send for my neighbours C. and G., or consult the clerk and 
church-wardens upon it ? But let us go into the garden ;' and, all 
laughing till we cried, without hats or bonnets, we sallied forth 
out of his glorified window into the garden."f 

* Moore'* Diary, May 27, 1826. t Memoir, i. 304-5. 



84 KINDLY JESTS. 

The best proof of the kindliness of Sydney Smith's wit is, that 
it did not offend the friends upon whom it was played off. It was 
truthful without bitterness : its playful brightness cleared the at- 
mosphere, but the bolt never scathed. His jests upon Jeffrey, the 
"maximus minimus," were incessant, but they did not interrupt 
mutual friendship and esteem. The strongest recognition of the 
kindliness which underlay the mirth, is in a compliment paid by 
the Earl of Dudley, whose eccentricities, based on physical in- 
firmity, might have excused sensitiveness. When Smith took leave 
of him, on going from London to Yorkshire, Dudley said, " You 
have been laughing at me constantly, Sydney, for the last seven 
years, and yet, in all that time, you never said a single thing to me 
that I wished unsaid." The fact is, that the humour of Sydney 
Smith was a relief from the usual social impertinences, the chief 
ingredient of which is malevolence, which pass, in society, under 
the name of wit. Take away the malignity, the spite, the per- 
versions, the irreligion, the indecorum of most witty sayings, and 
how small a residuum is left. There was nothing of the slow, 
stealthy approach of the sarcastic, biting sayer of " good things" 
in Sydney Smith. His jests were in a rollicking vein of extrav- 
aganza. The tendency of this humour is to license, but Smith's 
conversation was innocent. JVJfoore, who had the best opportunity 
of knowing the range of Smith's social moods, says, " in his gayest 
flights, though boisterous, he is never vulgar."* Rogers described 
his style to the life : " Whenever the conversation is getting dull, 
he throws in some touch which makes it rebound and rise again 
as light as ever. There is this difference between Luttrell and 
Smith : after Luttrell, you remember what good things he said — 
after Smith, you remember how much you laughed."f 

* Diary, March 13, 1833. 

t Moore's Diary, April 10, 1823. On the same occasion Moore- writes : 
" Smith particularly amusing. Have rather held out against him hitherto ; 
but this day he conquered me ; and I am now his victim, in the laughing way, 
for life. His imagination of a duel between two doctors, with oil of Croton 
on the tips of their fingers, trying to touch each other's lips, highly ludi- 



WISDOM OF THE WIT. 85 

In his own Essay on Wit, Smith fearlessly quoted the multi- 
farious and exhaustive definition of Barrow. He may be tried 
on each of its counts, and be found honourably guilty of perpe- 
trating every jest enumerated in the indictment. The " pat allu- 
sion to a known story," is exemplified in the case of memorable 
Mrs. Partington ; the " forging an apposite tale," in the passage 
from the Synod of Dort and the story of " the Village ;" while the 
" dress of humourous expression," the " odd similitude," the " bold 
scheme of speech," the " tart irony," the " lusty hyperbole," the 
"acute nonsense," were peculiarly Sydney Smith's own. The 
reductio ad absurdum was his favourite method. He gave his 
fish line, and swam it to death. He well knew how " affinity of 
sound and words and phrases" enriched expression, and practised 
the art in his style, but the perversion of these things in puns he 
despised. We have noticed only two instances in all his wri- 
tings.* 

If the form of his wit indicated something of levity, its spirit 
was sound and earnest. There was a grave thought always at the 
bottom. This has given his writings a permanent value, while 
brilliant contemporary reputations have fluttered and died. On 
this point an acute critic, Mrs. Jameson, remarks — and her testi- 
mony may be taken for the greater value, since she complains, 
that " her nature feels the want of the artistic and imaginative in 
his nature" — that "the wit of Sydney Smith almost always in- 
volved a thought worth remembering for its own sake, as well as 
worth remembering for its brilliant vehicle : the value of ten thou- 
sand pounds sterling of sense concentrated into a cut and polished 
diamond. It is not true, as I have heard it said," she continues, 
" that after leaving the society of Sydney Smith, you only remem- 
bered how much you had laughed, not the good things at which 

* One of Napoleon, in 1798, "Ireland safe; and Buonaparte embayed in 
Egypt; that is, surrounded by Beys !" The other, in a note to the Countess 
Grey: "If anyone hearing the name of Grey comes this way (to Combe 
Florey), send him to us : I am Grey-men-iverous I" 



86 LETTERS. 

you had laughed. Few men — wits by profession — ever said so 
many memorable things as those recorded of Sydney Smith."* 

The Letters of Sydney Smith have little pretension in their 
form as epistolary compositions ; but they are rare specimens of a 
rare class ; ranking, for their terseness and witty flavour, with the 
notes and " notelets" of Charles Lamb. - They are generally brief, 
never attempt any regular or didactic exposition of a subject, but 
contain, in virtue of their epigrammatic truthfulness — to say 
nothing of the constant entertainment — profitable matter of gen- 
eral wisdom and information of the men and affairs of his day, to 
take their place with the published correspondence of the greatest 
of his contemporaries. In a few lines he settles a moral question, 
draws the portrait of a public man, pleasantly corrects a defect, or 
rallies the spirits of a friend. He wrote often to Jeffrey, and to 
John Murray ; less frequently to Allen, Lord Holland, Earl Grey, 
and in the latter part of his life exchanged a gouty correspondence 
with Sir George Philips, and wrote warm complimentary notes to 
Dickens. But most of his letters are addressed to ladies ; to Lady 
Holland, to Mrs, Meynell, to Miss Georgiana Harcourt, daughter 
of the Archbishop of York, the Countess Grey, Lady Mary 
Bennett, and others. Playful and sincerely affectionate, they are 
the perfection of ingenious flattery, the sweetness of the adulation 
being taken off by the humourous extravagance. 

A paragraph is due to Holland House, a seat sacred in the his- 
tory of Letters, the centre of the important social, literary, and 
political circle with which Sydney Smith revolved during the 
greater part of his life. Its traditions go back to the early years 
of the seventeenth century, when it was built by Sir Walter 
Cope.f The grounds had belonged to the noble family of the De 

* Common-Place Book of Thoughts, Memories and Fancies, p. 49. 

t There is a pleasant account of the historical incidents connected with 
Holland House, in two papers by Leigh Hunt, in Nos. 204 and 205 of House- 
hold Words. 



HOLLAND HOUSE. 87 

Vere's since the Conquest. The house was bequeathed by Cope 
to his son-in-law, Henry Rich, first Earl of Holland, a son of the 
first Earl of Warwick. Rich was a gallant man, a favourite at the 
court of Charles I. In the beginning of the civil war he sided with 
the Parliament, then took up arms for the King — was taken pris- 
oner and executed in 1648. Fairfax, the Parliamentary general, 
next occupied the mansion ; when, as tradition goes, it was privy 
to the deliberations of Cromwell. After the Restoration it had 
various occupants, Pope's "downright Shippen" among them. 
Before establishing himself at Kensington, King William, as we 
learn, from Macaulay's History, thought of the House as a resi- 
dence, and occupied it a few weeks.* The second Earl of Hol- 
land, the elder branch of his family failing, united the titles of 
Warwick and Holland. Marriage with the widow of his son, the 
Countess of Warwick, in 1716, made Addison an inmate of 
Holland House. The poet passed there the last three years of his 
life, not very happily, as Johnson would have us infer, who repre- 
sents him as a slave to the rank of the Countess. He gained new 
titles of his own to honour, however, at the time, for it was in the 
second year of his marriage that he was made Secretary of State. 
There is a doubtful story of his meditating Spectators in the 
library, refreshed by a bottle of wine at either end of the room. 
This, if it occurred at all, must have been before his marriage, 
since the Spectator closed with the year 1714. It was in a cham- 
ber of Holland House that the death scene occurred, when 
Addison called to him his step-son, the young Earl of Warwick, to 
" see how a Christian can die." The family of the Earls of Hol- 
land becoming extinct, in 1759, the house became, soon after, by 
purchase, the property of Henry Fox, the crafty politician of the 
Walpole era, who was created Lord Holland, the first of the 
present line. His father was Sir Stephen Fox, who, from being 
a chorister boy at Salisbury Cathedral, was called to an inferior 
situation at court, attended Charles II. in exile, and on his return 
* Chapter xi., vol. iii. 



Ob LORD HOLLAND. 

secured an honourable fortune by his financial skill and integrity. 
" In a word/' says Evelyn, in his Diary, " never was man more 
fortunate than Sir Stephen ; he is a handsome person, virtuous, 
and very religious."* He was seventy-six years old when he 
married a second time, and became the father of Henry Fox. A 
son of the latter, Stephen Fox, was the second Lord Holland, elder 
brother of Charles James Fox. Stephen Fox died young, and 
left the title to the late Lord Holland, who restored the literary 
prestige of the house, not only by his own writings, but by his 
patronage of merit. His liberal parliamentary career is matter 
of recent history. His chief writings are, Lives of Lope de 
Vega and Guillem de Castro, a translation of three Spanish come- 
dies, and of a Canto of the Orlando Furioso, the Preface to Fox's 
History of James II., for the copyright of which Murray paid the 
magnificent sum of four thousand pounds, the Prefaces to his edi- 
tions, from the original MSS., of Earl Waldegrave's Memoirs, and 
Horace "Walpole's Last Ten Years of the Reign of George n., 
and posthumous Recollections of Foreign Courts, and Memoirs of 
the Whig party. He was a clever writer of occasional verses. 
His couplet to the poet Rogers, affixed to a garden-seat in the 
grounds of Holland House, is very neat : — 

" Here Eogers sat ; and here for ever dwell 
To me, those Pleasures that he sang so well." 

The fines which were found on his dressing-table at his death, 
are as finely conceived : — 

" Nephew of Fox and friend of Grey — 
Enough my meed of fame, 
If those who deigned to observe me say 
I injured neither name." 

The amiable character of Lord Holland, no less than his intellec- 
tual characteristics, endeared him to Sydney Smith. Lady Holland 
celebrates their conversation : — " short, varied, interspersed with 
wit, illustration and anecdote on both sides ; the perfection of so- 
* Diary, September, 6, 1680. 



LADY HOLLAND. 89 

cial intercourse, a sort of mental dram-drinking, rare as it was 
delightful."* 

An important position in the literary annals of Holland House 
belongs to Lady Holland. She was the daughter and heir of 
Richard Vassall and the divorced wife of Sir Godfrey Webster. 
Lord Holland, previous to his marriage to her, in 1797, paid to 
her husband six thousand pounds damages in a criminal action. 
He took, at the marriage, the name of Vassall. Lady Holland 
had talent, knew how to shine among the wits, be fascinating and 
influential, was often a warm friend, while her domineering patron- 
age appears at times to have been sufficiently offensive. It is 
curious to note Sydney Smith's recognition of a HoMandophobia 
visiting all new guests at the house. The poet Campbell, at the 
age of thirty, went there with dread. " Lady Holland," he writes 
to a friend, " is a formidable woman. She is cleverer, by several 
degrees, than Buonaparte." Rogers told a characteristic story of 
her manner : — " When Lady Holland wanted to get rid of a fop, 
she used to say, ' I beg your pardon, but I wish you would sit a 
little further off; there is something on your handkerchief which I 
don't quite like.' "f Very unlike this was Sydney Smith's descrip- 
tion of the kind and intellectual Miss Fox, Lord Holland's sister : — 
" Oh, she is perfection : she always gives me the idea of an aged 
angel." 

Byron gave some caustic touches to the literary set at Holland 
House, in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, with a cutting 
glance at " My lady." There are some instances of her rule in Rogers' 
Table Talk,! and an occasional glimpse, in Moore's Diary, of her 

* Memoirs, i. 78. 

t Dyce's Table Talk, p. 273. 

% Take one for the sake of the adroitly-turned compliment at the close : — 
"Lord Holland never ventured to ask any one to dinner (not even me, whom 
he had known so long and so intimately) without previously consulting Lady 
II. Shortly before his dcatli I called at Holland House, and found only Lady 
II. within. As I was coming out I met Lord Holland, who said, 'Well, do 
you return to dinner?' I answered, 'No; I have not been invited/ Perhaps 
this deference to Lady II. was not to be regretted ; for Lord Holland was so 



90 GARDEN SCENE. 

" rather bravura mood." A Sunday garden scene, in that record, 
is picturesque : " Breakfasted with Rogers. "Went out to Holland 
House. The levee there of a Sunday always delightful. My 
Lord on his stock-still pony, taking exercise, as he thinks : and 
my Lady in her whiskey, surrounded by savans. There were to- 
day Sydney Smith, Brougham, Jeffrey, &c. Sydney Smith 
praised my i Byron,' the first book of mine (or indeed any one 
else's) I ever heard him give a good word to ; seemed to do it, 
too, with sincerity."* Elsewhere Moore chronicles Lord Holland 
at breakfast " in his gouty chair, but with a face as gay and shin- 
ing as that of a schoolboy." He has a happy look in Leslie's pic- 
ture of the Library at Holland House, where he is introduced 
with full lengths of Lady Holland and their constant companion, 
Allen ; who appears as well filled out in person and beneficent in 
countenance as his Lordship. 

There are some very pleasant glimpses of Holland House in 
Sydney Smith's Letters. Writing to Lady Holland, he says : — " 1 
am sure it is better for Lord Holland and you to be at Holland 
House, because you both hate exercise (as every person of sense 
does), and you must be put in situations where it can be easily 
and pleasantly taken. Even Allen gets some exercise at Hol- 
land House, for Horner, Sheridan, and Lord Lauderdale take 
him out on the gravel-walk, to milk him for bullion, Spain, Amer- 
ica, and India ; whereas, in London, he is milked in that stall be- 
low stairs."! 

In another letter to Lady Holland, without date, Allen reap- 
pears : — " I know nothing more agreeable than a dinner at Holland 
House ; but it must not begin at ten in the morning, and last till 
six. I should be incapable, for the last four hours, of laughing at 
Lord Holland's jokes, eating Raffaelle's cakes, or repelling Mr. 
Allen's attacks upon the church." 

hospitable and good-natured, that, had he been left to himself, he would have 
had a crowd at his table daily." — (Dyce's Recollections, p. 275.) 

* Moore's Diary, May 2, 1830. 

t Heslington, April 21, 1810. 



macaulay's tribute. 91 

Allen's chemistry and opinions were always a resource for Syd- 
ney Smith. Moore has one of these occasions ; dining at Holland 
House, he enters in his Diary : — " Sydney Smith very comical 
about the remedy that Lady Holland is going to use for the book- 
worm, which is making great ravages in the library. She is about 
to have them washed with some mercurial preparation ; and Smith 
says it is Davy's opinion that the air will become charged with the 
mercury, and that the whole family will be salivated. 'I shall see 
Allen,' says Smith, ' some day, with his tongue hanging out, speech- 
less, and shall take the opportunity to stick a few principles into 
him.'"* 

The finest tribute to the literary glories of Holland House, under 
the long reign of its late master, is in an article on Lord Holland, 
by Macaulay, in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1841 — where, in 
most musical periods, are painted the reminiscences of "a few 
old men" visiting the locality on which the great city is so rapidly 
encroaching. " With peculiar fondness they will recall that ven- 
erable chamber, in which all the antique gravity of a college library 
was so singularly blended with all that female grace and wit could 
devise to embellish a drawing-room. They will recollect, not un- 
moved, those shelves, loaded with the varied learning of many 
lands and many ages ; those portraits in which were preserved the 
features of the best and wisest Englishmen of two generations. 
They will recollect how many men who have guided the politics 
of Europe — who have moved great assemblies by reason and 
eloquence — who have put life into bronze or canvass, or who have 
left to posterity things so written as it shall not willingly let them 
die — were there mixed with all that was loveliest and gayest in the 
society of the most splendid of capitals. They will remember the 
singular character which belonged to that circle, in which every 
talent and accomplishment, every art and science, had its place. 
They will remember how the last debate was discussed in one 
corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in another; while Wilkie 
* Diary, April 6, 1823. 



92 



CLIQUES. 



gazed with modest admiration on Reynolds' Baretti; while Mack- 
intosh turned over Thomas Aquinas, to verify a quotation ; while 
Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the Luxem- 
burg, or his ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz. They 
wiU remember, above all, the grace— and the kindness, far more 
admirable than grace— with which the princely hospitality of that 
ancient mansion was dispensed." 

Whilst honouring these associations of Sydney Smith's manly 
and noble friendships, it is but justice to the society of his age, to 
remind the reader, that there were brilliant thinkers and writers 
outside of the charmed circle and visiting list of Holland House, 
of whose existence we are scarcely reminded in the letters and 
conversations of this clever divine. " We should never discover/' 
remarks the North American Review, "from this chronicle that 
Coleridge also talked, Carlyle reasoned, Lamb jested, Hazlitt 
criticised, and Shelley and Keats sang in those days. Within the 
sensible zone of English life, as that term is usually understood, 
Sydney lived. His scope was within the Whig ranks in politics, 
and the Established Church pale in religion. The iron horizon of 
caste is the framework of this attractive picture."* 

It is to be noticed also, in this connection, how little Smith's 
reputation was promoted by the arts of the press of the present 
day. His associates avoided mere literary notoriety. The Edin- 
burgh Review was anonymous, and it was only in his latter days, 
when he wrote, occasionally, to the newspapers, and his " works" 

* N. A. Rev. Jan., 1 856. An appreciative view of the essential personal char- 
acter of Sydney Smith, by Mr. H. T. Tuckerrnan. The list of omissions might 
be enlarged by many honoured names. It is not to be supposed, however, that 
Smith was or would have been insensible to the merit of the great authors just 
named, or that the " Chronicle" tells the whole story of his tastes and acquisi- 
tions. Preoccupied with his own duties, he was slow or indifferent in making 
new acquaintances. In 1848, ten years after Carlyle had published his Sartor 
Resartus, and three years after the publication of his French Revolution, 
Smith writes to a lady friend : "I have not read Carlyle, though I have got 
him on my list. I am rather curious about him." But had any man ever 
nobler friends, or did any ever honour such friends more ? 



CONTEMPORARY NOTICES. 93 

had been collected, that Sydney Smith's name was much before 
the public. There are few early notices of him by his brother 
authors. 

Byron has an allusion in " English Bards and Scotch Review- 
ers," to " Smug Sydney," and in his sixteenth Canto of Don Juan, 
in the description of the banquet : — 

" And lo ! upon that day it came to pass, 

I sat next that overwhelming son of heaven, 
The very powerful parson, Peter Pith, 
The loudest wit I e'er was deafened with. 

" I knew him in his livelier London days, 

A brilliant diner-out, though but a curate ; 

And not joke he cut but earned its praise, 
Until preferment, coming at a sure rate, 

(0 Providence ! how wondrous are thy ways '. 
Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate ?) 

Gave him, to lay the devil who looks o'er Lincoln, 

A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on. 

" His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes ; 

But both were thrown away amongst the fens ; 
For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks. 

No longer ready ears and short-hand pens 
Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax : 

The poor priest was reduced to common sense, 
Or to coarse efforts very loud and long, 
To hammer a hoarse laugh from the thick throng." 

Moore compliments him in some verses written about 1840, 
entitled, " The Triumphs of Farce." 

"And still let us laugh, preach the world as it may, 

Where the cream of the joke is, the swarm will soon follow; 
Heroics are very fine things in their way, 

But the laugh, at the long-run, will carry it hollow. 

" Yes, Jocus ! gay god, whom the Gentiles supplied, 

And whose worship not even among Christians declines ; 
In our senates thou'st languished, since Sheridan died, 
But Sydney still keeps thee alive in our shrines. 

" Rare Sydney ! thrice honoured the stall where he sits, 
And be his every honour he deigneth to climb at ! 
Had England a hierarchy formed all of wits, 
Whom, but Sydney, would England proclaim as it primate? 



94 NO SPORTSMAN. 

"And long may he flourish, frank, merry, and brave, 
A Horace to feast with, a Pascal to read ! 
While he laughs, all is safe ; but, when Sydney grows grave, 
We shall then think the Church is in danger indeed." 

There are one or two notices of Smith in the Nodes Ambrosi- 
ance, where his old Edinburgh friends took good care of him. 
Tickler pronounces him " a formidable enemy to pomposity and 
pretension. No man can wear a big wig comfortably in his pres- 
ence ; the absurdity of such enormous fizzle is felt ; and the dig- 
nitary would fain exchange all that horsehair for a few scattered 
locks of another animal." To which Christopher North sagely 
replies, " He would make a lively interlocutor at a Noctes." 
Sydney is introduced again, in 1831, when there was talk of 
making him a Bishop. North thinks that, at the first vacancy, he 
should be made Dean of St. Patrick's, as a witty successor, of 
course, of Swift. Tickler suggests, that we should then have the 
charges in rhyme, e. g. :— 

" Reverend brethren, fish not, shoot not, 
Keel not, quadrille not, fiddle not, flute not, 
But of all things, it is my devoutest desire, sirs, 
That the parson on Sunday should dine with the Squire, sirs.=* 

In 1838, there was a lively notice of " the Eeverend Sydney 
Smith," in Fraser's " Gallery of Literary Characters," with a 

* Smith, by the way, was himself no sportsman. When he settled in the 
country he formed a resolution never to shoot, and gave these conclusive 
reasons : " Eirst, because I found, on trying at Lord Grey's, that the birds 
seemed to consider the muzzle of my gun as their safest position ; secondly, 
because I never could help shutting my eyes when I fired my gun, so was not 
likely to improve ; and thirdly, because, if you do shoot, the squire and the 
poacher both consider you as their natural enemy, and I thought it more 
clerical to be at peace with both." (Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 133.) He 
was quite too careless a rider for the chase, and had far too little patience for 
the angle. Dancing seems to have had a peculiar effect upon him. When 
his pupil was under his charge at Edinburgh, he wrote to Mrs. Beach: 
"Michael takes a lesson in dancing every day. I get him, now and then, to 
show me a step or two. I cannot bear the repetition of this spectacle every 
day, as it never fails to throw me into a fit of laughing little short of suffoca- 
tion." (Memoir, 4th Eng. ed., p. 25.) Of theatres, oratorios and the like, 
he was always impatient. 



GRAVITY AND LICENSE. 95 

wicked caricature, by Maclise, which, however, taken with the 
other engraved portraits, may help, materially, to a knowledge of 
the personal appearance of the man. 

Much has been said concerning the irreverence of Sydney Smith, 
and his incapacity, in consequence of the social freedom, the license 
of the intellect, which he indulged in, to discharge the sober duties 
of the Church. As there is, apparently, some colour for this objec- 
tion, it may be worth while to look into its nature. It is undoubtedly 
right that a clergyman should be required to make some sacrifices 
of matters allowable enough in themselves, to sustain the distinct 
professional character of his calling. The world exacts some- 
thing from the lawyer, the physician, and the merchant, on this 
point. These classes are bound under various social penalties, 
to sustain, to a certain extent, a conventional propriety and deco- 
rum. The pleader is expected by his client to be calm and col- 
lected, and play no mountebank tricks in court. A physician who 
indulges in any great levity of manner should not be disappointed 
at the slender list of his patients. The great merchant is a grave 
man, for he is intrusted with the millions of other people, and pecu- 
niary responsibility of this kind must needs occupy his attention 
seriously. In a higher degree and to a greater extent, the voca- 
tion of the divine demands and inspires solemnity. There is, how- 
ever, parallel with all these requirements, a natural, healthy, free 
development of the individual man. Gravity is a good thing in 
its place, but it may be asked for in excess. The cheap gravity 
of the fool, whose stagnant countenance is the index of the un- 
stirred mind within, may be purchased in every market ; and very, 
frequently finds purchasers who pay dear for the commodity. 
Gravity may be the cloak of hypocrisy ; it is a garment easily 
made up, and its wear deceives many. Get the genuine article, 
and it is invaluable. " There is," says Doctor South, " the silence 
of an Archimedes in the study of a problem, and the stillness of a 
sow at her wash." Lest we confound exhibitions so diverse, we 



96 WIT AND CHARACTER. 

must look underneath to the elements of character. The man, 
after all, is the basis of the worth, and as it is upon the develop- 
ment of what Nature has implanted, care must be taken not to 
thwart or defeat her movements. She, the mighty mother, will 
assert herself rightfully, and overrule or be revenged upon the 
conventionalisms. If your grave lawyer does not possess liveliness 
or quickness of mind, he will not see promptly into your case, or 
will hazard it where readiness is required, in the brief, dramatic 
action of the court. The physician should have great vivacity of 
perception, for he has frequently but a moment to choose between 
life and death. The merchant needs a nimble understanding, else 
his staid formulas of trade will leave him in poverty. Is it any 
ground of objection with an intelligent mmd, that the lawyer is a 
man of humour, that he makes an excellent after-dinner speech, 
that he enjoys a dramatic entertainment ; that the physician con- 
trasts the pretensions of intellect with his knowledge of physical 
necessities, and laughs loudly and frequently over the incongruities 
brought to his knowledge ; or that the merchant, out of his count- 
ing-house, makes himself as jocose and agreeable as it is possible 
for him to be? To state the objection is to refute it. How is the 
case, then, different with a clergyman ? Does wit incapacitate him 
for the work of a Christian minister ? Because he may be said, 
unlike the lawyer, physician, or merchant, to be always practising 
his profession, is he, on that account, never to relax the muscles 
of his face, or shake the midriff of his neighbour by laughter-com- 
pelling jest ? An Apostle has borne his testimony against dullness 
in conversation, by recommending that speech be seasoned with 
salt. No one can reasonably question the good gifts of wit and 
humour, in their beneficence to one in the clerical relation, or in 
any other. It becomes, then, a question of degree, when Sydney 
Smith is arraigned as too great a jester for the pulpit. But how 
can this question of moderation be decided ? Who shall set the 
limit where wit transcends decorum and commences to be anti- 
clerical ? If one jest or a dozen are permissible, why not twenty 



CLERICAL WITS. 97 

or thirty ? Or, is it to be regulated by time ? If the latter, the 
standard is unequal, for your Sydney Smith will let off a hundred 
witticisms while your dullard is feebly labouring at one, and 
voluble nonsense will triumph when wise meditation is silenced. 
At what precise moment must the wrinkled grin be smoothed down 
into the platitude of propriety ? Is the sin hi the strength of the 
article ? Is a smile orthodox, and is a laugh heretical ? May a 
good man, without violation of his goodness, cause his companion 
to shake in his chair, with gentle titillations, while it becomes sin- 
ful to inflict the acuter displays of wit, the inextinguishable laughter 
of the immortals. Gentle dullness, we know on good poetical 
authority, ever loves a joke, but must all jokes be conformed to 
the standard of dullness ? " You are always aiming at wit," said 
some one of the class of objectors to Charles Lamb. " It is better, 
at any rate," was the retort, " than always aiming at dullness." It 
was in reference to the same race of critics that the eminent divine, 
Dr. Samuel Clarke, being once engaged in a game of romps, seeing 
a mere formalist approaching, exclaimed, " Let us give over, there's 
a fool coming." The common sense of the world sets any objec- 
tion at rest. Practically, we have never known any one to possess 
wit and despise it. On the contrary, we have seen very pious 
clergymen exult at the perpetration of very feeble jokes. We have 
observed them also, at a loss for a witticism, run to the Bible for a 
text. Indeed, they frequently fall into the error of a familiar and 
irreverent use of Scripture texts in conversation and on pub- 
lic occasions, from lack of that very culture of wit and literature 
which would place other and more appropriate weapons at their 
disposal. 

There were clerical wits before Smitli in the English Church ; 
Latimer, with his rough, homely, vigorous way ; the quaint hu- 
mourist, Dr. Thomas Fuller, the Church historian, whose incessant 
quips and cranks were always subservient to his much reading and 
a sound, healthy understanding ; Echard, whose " Letters on the 
Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy," were the 

5 



98 SERIOUSNESS. 

godfathers of Sydney Smith's papers on clerical topics ; the rich, 
mellow wit of South, in his pure-toned, eloquent discourses ; the 
scornful mood of Swift; the pulpit attitudinarianism of Sterne. 
Some of the sermons of these men must have tempted the laughter 
of their congregations ; a natural tribute to honest convictions of 
truth which would seldom be tolerated within modern church walls. 
Much might be said in defence of the pulpit wit of South, and his 
example might be commended as a resource to preachers who can- 
not afford, at this time of day, to lose a single potent instrument 
of arousing the susceptibility of their hearers. Sydney Smith, 
however, does not ask this vindication or indulgence. His pub- 
lished sermons are as solemn, as free from unseemly jesting, as 
those of the gravest and dullest of his brethren. He drew the line 
distinctly between levity and sanctity; never confounding the 
choir of St. Paul's with the dining-room of Holland House. His 
friend, Mrs. Austin, when she first heard him preach at the Lon- 
don Cathedral, confesses that she had "some misgivings as to the 
effect which that well-known face and voice, ever associated with 
wit and mirth, might have upon her, even in the sacred place. 
Never (she acids) were misgivings more quickly and entirely dis- 
sipated. The moment he appeared in the pulpit, all the weight of 
his duty, all the authority of his office, were written on his counte- 
nance ; and without a particle of affectation (of which he was in- 
capable), his whole demeanor bespoke the gravity of his purpose."* 
This was the habitual effect of his ministerial duties, and it might 
have been looked for. Nor was this gravity confined to the pul- 
pit. After leaving one of Rogers' breakfasts, with Sydney, Moore 
tells us, " I found him (as I have often done before) change at 
once from the gay, uproarious way, into as solemn, grave, and 
austere a person as any bench of judges or bishops could supply : 
this I rather think his natural character '."f The topics of these 
wits were not always the lightest, as another striking entry in 
Moore's Diary witnesses. It was in London, in June, 1831: — 
* Memoir, p. 273. t Moore's Diary, May 27, 1826. 



THE CLERICAL CHARACTER. 99 

" Walked with Sydney Smith ; told me his age ; turned sixty. 
Asked me how I felt about dying. Answered that if my mind 
was but at ease about the comfort of those I left behind, I should 
leave the world without much regret, having passed a very happy 
life, and enjoyed (as much, perhaps, as ever man did yet) all that 
is enjoyable in it ; the only single thing I have had to complain of 
being want of money. I could, therefore, die with the same words 
that Jortin died, ' I have had enough of everything.' " What the 
reply of the divine was we are not informed. 

True wit is a precious commodity, the distillation of a generous, 
richly-gifted nature, and such a disposition must be founded on 
seriousness. There is a light, frivolous wit, a melancholy, scoffing 
wit ; but these do not belong to the nature to which we allude. 
We hold it to be utterly impossible that a man should possess the 
honest mirth of Sydney Smith and be insensible to the gravities 
of life ; that he should penetrate to the heart of social abuses, of 
conventionalisms, of cant of every kind with a loving eye to the 
real welfare of his race, and should want at the same time sym- 
pathy with sadness, tears for grief, or a sacred regard for religious 
obligations. 

What is thus true between man and man does not become false 
when a clergyman is the subject. It is only where a low, injuri- 
ous view of the clerical character is taken, that there can be any 
misconception of the matter. It is as absurd to say that a minis- 
ter of any religious denomination shall not laugh, and that loudly 
and frequently too, if he please, because his duty is to worship and 
to pray, as it would be to forbid a healthy-lunged layman joining 
in the litanies of the church on account of his gay temperament, 
and his faculty of enjoying himself prodigiously at festive enter- 
tainment-. 

There is a popular delusion among good men on the matter. 
The clergyman, whatever his natural disposition may be, is expected 
by many people, not accustomed to get to the heart of a subject, to 
wear always the externals of piety and to relax nothing from the 



100 USES OP WIT. 

rigours of a ghastly white cravat, an unbending, facial muscle, and 
a stolid, glazed eye. There is consequently a struggle of nature 
against him. Humanity keeps at a distance from him ; and hu- 
manity, in the end, will have the advantage over him ; for it is too 
much for any one man or any set of men. If a clergyman assumes 
a conventional dress and manner, he invites and is pretty sure to 
receive from the world a conventional treatment. A thousand so- 
cial hypocrisies start up to meet him. His sanctities are admitted 
as a matter of fashion ; it is respectable to speak well of the cloth, 
as it is termed, but how is the influence of the man within the gar- 
ment abated ! In another way, also occasional and too frequent 
injury is sustained. Professional decorum, once established, be- 
comes a mask which it is easier to wear than to challenge the re- 
wards of holiness by practising rigorously its duties ; the genial, 
active life of mental and personal industry, of courage, liberality, 
and honour ; mingling freely with the world, at once in it and 
above it ; the true friendship of publicans and sinners, of the poor 
and the contemned. 

It is to be considered, in illustration of these remarks, in the 
case of Sydney Smith, how greatly his wit enlarged his influence 
with the world in the cause of truth ; how it pointed and feathered 
the arrows which were to carry conviction to dull understandings ; 
how it was constantly and uniformly exerted in levelling oppres- 
sion and injustice ; how much it added to the power of the great 
practical reformer. We may add that it sometimes gave him an 
authority in rebuking infidelity itself, where a heavier weapon 
would have failed. At a dinner once at Holland House he met a 
French savant who took it upon himself to annoy the best disposed 
of the company by a variety of free-thinking speculations. He 
ended by avowing himself a materialist. " Yery good soup this," 
struck in Mr. Smith. " Oui, Monsieur, c'est excellente" " Pray, 
sir," was the retort which for that time and place was worth a 
library of argument, " do you believe in a cook ?"* 
* Memoir of Kev. Richard Barham, p. 105. 



ANTI-INFIDELITY. 101 

The Rev. Sydney Smith was sound at heart on this subject. 
When he saw some signs of unseemly levity, as he thought, in an 
article* in the Edinburgh Review, he wrote to the editor, Jeffrey, 
rebuking the license as injurious, by its indiscretion, and rendering 
it " perilous to a clergyman in particular to be concerned in the 
Review." Ten years later he wrote again to Jeffrey — "I must 
beg the favour of you to be explicit on one point. Do you mean to 
take care that the Review shall not profess or encourage infidel 
principles ? Unless this is the case I must absolutely give up 
all thoughts of connecting myself with it."f 

Sydney Smith must thus be absolved from the charge of employ- 
ing his wit to the injury of sound religious principle. As a matter 
of taste he sometimes, it must be admitted, pushed his jest to an 
extremity with professional ecclesiastical arrangements, and, in a 
few instances, as in his description of Rogers' dining-room, with 
"a blaze of light above, and below nothing but darkness and 
gnashing of teeth,"! may be rebuked by the censure of Dr. 

=* It was an article in the Eeview for Jan., 1808, making sport of a heavy 
and absurd epic poem, by Charles Hoyle, of Cambridge, on the departure of 
the Israelites from Egypt, entitled Exodus, an example of the not uncommon 
delusion of crude imitators of Homer and Milton. The article follows one 
of Sydney Smith on Methodism, which at least to those who winced under 
it, would appear far more reprehensible than speaking lightly of Pharaoh and 
the jugglers of his court. Smith's objection to the latter article showed 
his sensitiveness as a wit as well as his sense of the proprieties. " The lev- 
ities," he says, " are ponderous and vulgar, as well as indiscreet." Scripture 
was one thing in the eyes of Sydney Smith, and the Methodism of the begin- 
ning of the century quite another. His treatment of what he considered the 
eccentricities of the latter was vigorous and unsparing. In reading his reply 
to Mr. John Styles, who ventured a retort, we feel that it is " excellent to 
have a giant's strength," and perhaps, " tyrannous to use it like a giant." 

t Letter 141. 

\ Dyce's Table Talk of Rogers. Rogers arrays the poetical authorities 
on the distribution of light, in a note to his "Epistle to a Friend," citing 
Homer, Lucretius, Virgil, Leonardo da Vinci, and Milton. A Quarterly 
Reviewer remarks upon this : " There are few precepts of taste that are not 
practised in Mr. Rogers' establishment, as well as recommended in his works; 
but he has hit upon a novel and ingenious mode of lighting a dining-room. 
Lamps above, or candles on the table, there are none; all the light is reflected 



102 PROFESSIONAL JESTING. 

Jolmson on the employment of " idle and indecent applications of 
sentences taken from the Scriptures ; a mode of merriment which 
a good man dreads for its profaneness, and a witty man disdains 
for its easiness and vulgarity."* Another is readily pardonable, 
the oft-mentioned reply to Landseer's request that he should sit to 
him for his picture — " Is thy servant a dog that he should do this 
thing ?" There is another of the same class attributed to him on 
receiving, at the time of the Pennsylvania grievance, a visiter who 
congratulated him on his happy circumstances. "Yes," said 
Sydney, in the words of St. Paul, " I would that you were almost 
and altogether such as I am, except these bonds." Sydney Smith, 
however, appears seldom to have transgressed in this direction. 
The defence of a friendly writer on this subject must be admitted 
in his favour. " Some of the happiest jests of Smith were ecclesi- 
astical. But such sallies were too professional to be profane. 
They seemed to rebound upon himself, or they played about his 
order: they certainly scorched nothing. If there was satire in 
them, it was directed only at hypocrisy or corruption. If he could 
lightly touch the terrene and external part of religion — its secular- 
ized institutions — its drowsy dignitaries ; he paid lowliest obeisance 
(wherever he could discern it) to its heavenly spirit. He could 
play with the tassel of his cushion ; never with the leaves of his 

Bible."f 

In one or two instances there is a freedom of expression in- 
dulged in by Sydney Smith, allowable perhaps, among the liberties 
of social life of Europe, where conversation and literature are less 

by Titians, Reynolds, &c, from lamps projecting out of the frames of the 
pictures and screened from the company." (Quar. Rev., lv., 457.) 

* Life of Pope. The witty Dr. Thomas Euller had anticipated Johnson in 
this remark. In the chapter " Of Jesting," in his Holy State, he says : "Jest 
not with the two-edged sword of God's word. Will nothing please thee to 
wash thy hands in but the font ? or to drink healths in but the church chalice ? 
And know, the whole art is learnt at the first admission, and profane jests 
will come without calling." 

t An admirable article on the Life of Sydney Smith in the British Quar- 
terly Review for July, 1855. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 103 

restricted in these respects than in America. Addressing Lady 
Holland in 1811 in a note, in a reply to an invitation to dinner, 
his witticism seems bold as addressed to a lady ; satirical person- 
ally, considering the antecedents of his honourable hostess : — 

" How very odd, dear Lady Holland, to ask me to dine with 
you on Sunday, the 9th, when I am coming to stay with you from 
the 5th to the 12th ! It is like giving a gentleman an assignation 
for Wednesday, when you are going to marry him on the pre- 
ceding Sunday — an attempt to combine the stimulus of gallantry 
with the security of connubial relations. I do not propose to be 
guilty of the slightest infidelity to you while I am at Holland 
House, except you dine in town ; and then it will not be infidelity, 
but spirited recrimination. Ever the sincere and affectionate 
friend of Lady Holland." 

These, however, if pressed as defects, would be but slight 
blemishes in a lifetime passed in kindliness,* charity, truthfulness 
and honour. If his wit or humour occasionally appear in excess 
in his memoirs, it is to be remembered how largely these relaxa- 
tions of his life have been chronicled, and that all the while he 
was pursuing a serious, noble, useful career. The jests of Sydney 
Smith should be passed to his credit, as supererogatory gifts to the 
world, contributed after he had performed the usual duties of a 
valuable man. Men of worth and integrity are always to be hon- 
oured, but how little would we give for the table-talk of most of 
them, in comparison with that of this ingenious social benefactor. 

Sydney Smith was not, indeed, a profound spiritualist ; he was 

* There is a rare instance of forbearance for a wit, which comes to light in 
one of Sydney Smith's letters to Lady Holland, in 1839: "I have written 

against one of the cleverest pamphlets I ever read, which I think would 

cover and him with ridicule. At least it made me Laugh very much in 

reading it; and there I stood, with the printer's devil, and the real devil closo 
to me; and then I said, 'After all, this is very funny, and very well written, 
but it will give great pain to people who have been very kind and good to 
me through life; and what can I do to show my sense of that kindness, 
if it is not by flinging this pamphlet into the fire V So I flung it in, and 
there was an end ! My sense of ill-usage remains, of course, the same." 



104 THE HUMOimiST. 

not a great philosopher ; there have been deeper thinkers, more 
earnest divines. He was a dogmatist from his impulses and posi- 
tion in society. Fortunately his nature was broad and liberal, and 
his lot was cast among whigs and reformers. He was for expe- 
diency ; but his expediency implied courage for the right and true. 
It was not vulgar temporizing, but an enlarged conformity to the 
well-being of society. 

It is for few to round the outer circle, broken as is it, of human 
excellence. Sydney Smith, like most of the best of men, was but 
a parcel man. But how complete within his limits, how perfect 
in his segment ! He took a healthy view of life, as it must prac- 
tically come home to the greater part of the world ; saw its neces- 
sities, and complied with its duties, while he embroidered this 
plainness with his delightful humours. 

Such men should be cultivated at the present day from their 
rarity, for modern levelling is not favourable to their growth. They 
enlarge the freedom of life, add to its faculties as well as its enjoy- 
ments, clear the intellectual and warm the moral atmosphere. 
Characters there are enough, excrescences on society, oddities, in 
the sense of perversions of human nature, anomalous churls, 
crude, hard-hearted and repulsive ; but there are few such illus- 
trations of the kindly powers of life as this brave humourist — the 
man of generous humour and humours. 



SELECTIONS, 



5* 



PASSAGES PROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 



DR. PARR'S SPITAL SERMON.* 



Whoever has had the good fortune to see Dr. Parr's wig, 
must have observed, that while it trespasses a little on the orthodox 
magnitude of perukes in the anterior parts, it scorns even Episco- 
pal limits behind, and swells out into boundless convexity of frizz, 
the fieya Oavfia of barbers, and the terror of the literary world. 
After the manner of his wig, the doctor has constructed his ser- 
mon, giving us a discourse of no common length, and subjoining 
an immeasurable mass of notes, which appear to concern every 
learned man, and almost every unlearned man since the beginning 
of the world.f 

ifc 7K "& *** n*" V *F *N 

The style is such as to give a general impression of heaviness 
to the whole sermon. The Doctor is never simple and natural for 
a single instant. Everything smells of the rhetorician. He never 
appears to forget himself, or to be hurried by his subject into 
obvious language. Every expression seems to be the result of 
artifice and intention ; and as to the worthy dedicatees, the Lord- 
Mayor and Aldermen, unless the sermon be done into English by 
a person of honour, they may, perhaps, be flattered by the Doc- 
tor's politeness, but they can never be much edified by his meaning. 

* Ed. Rev., Oct., 1802. Spital Sermon, preached at Christ Church upon 
Easter-Tuesday, April 15, 1800. To which are added, Notes by Samuel 
Parr, LL.D. 

t In the edition of Parr's Works, the sermon occupies fifty pages of pica 
text; the notes fill two hundred and twelve in brevier. 



108 A PRANCING INDENTURE. 

Dr. Parr seems to think that eloquence consists, not in exuberance 
of beautiful images — not in simple and sublime conceptions — not 
in the feelings of the passions ; but in a studious arrrangement of 
sonorous, exotic, and sesquipedal words : a very ancient error, 
which corrupts the style of young, and wearies the patience of 
sensible men. In some of his combinations of words the Doctor 
is singularly unhappy. We have the din of superficial cavillers, 
the prancings of giddy ostentation, flattering vanity, hissing scorn, 
dank clod, &c, &c, &c. The following intrusion of a technical 
word into a pathetic description renders the whole passage almost 
ludicrous : — 

"Within a few days, mute was the tongue that uttered these celestial 
sounds, and the hand which signed your indenture lay cold and motionless in 
the dark and dreary chambers of death." 

Dr. Parr, in speaking of the indentures of the hospital, a sub- 
ject (as we should have thought) little calculated for rhetorical 
panegyric, says of them : — 

" If the writer of whom I am speaking had perused, as I have, your in- 
dentures, and your rules, he would have found in them seriousness without 
austerity, earnestness without extravagance, good sense without the trickeries 
of art, good language without the trappings of rhetoric, and the firmness of 
conscious worth, rather than the prancings of giddy ostentation." 

The latter member of this eloge would not be wholly unintel- 
ligible, if applied to a spirited coach-horse ; but we have never yet 
witnessed the phenomenon of a prancing indenture. 



dr. langford's anniversary sermon of the royal hu- 
mane SOCIETY.* 

An accident which happened to the gentleman engaged in re- 
viewing this sermon proves, in the most striking manner, the im- 
portance of this charity for restoring to life persons in whom the 
vital power is suspended. He was discovered, with Dr. Langford's 
discourse lying open before him, in a state of the most profound 
sleep ; from which he could not, by any means, be awakened for a 
great length of time. By attending, however, to the rules pre- 
scribed by the Humane Society, flinging in the smoke of tobacco, 

* Anniversary Sermon of the Royal Humane Society. By W. Langford, 
D.I). Ed. Rev. Oct. 1802. 



TRAVELLERS. 109 

applying hot flannels, and carefully removing the discourse itself 
to a great distance, the critic was restored to his disconsolate 
brothers. 

The only account he could give of himself was, that he remem- 
bers reading on, regularly, till he came to the following pathetic 
description of a drowned tradesman ; beyond which he recollects 
nothing. 

" But to the individual himself, as a man, let us add the interruption to all 
the temporal business in which his interest was engaged. To him indeed, 
now apparently lost, the world is as nothing : but it seldom happens, that 
man can live for himself alone : society parcels out its concerns in various 
connections ; and from one head issue waters which run down in many chan- 
nels. The spring being suddenly cut off, what confusion must follow in the 
streams which have flowed from its source ? It may be, that all the expecta- 
tions, reasonably raised of approaching prosperity, to those who have embark- 
ed in the same occupation, may at once disappear ; and the important inter- 
change of commercial faith be broken off, before it could be brought to any 
advantageous conclusion." 

This extract will suffice for the style of the sermon. The char- 
ity itself is above all praise. 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL.f 

Of all the species of travels, that which has moral observation 
for its object is the most liable to error, and has the greatest diffi- 
culties to overcome, before it can arrive at excellence. Stones, 
and roots, and leaves, are subjects which may exercise the under- 
standing without rousing the passions. A mineralogical traveller 
will hardly fall fouler upon the granite and the feldspar of other 
countries than his own ; a botanist will not conceal its non-descripts ; 
and an agricultural tourist will faithfully detail the average crop 
per acre ; but the traveller who observes on the manners, habits, 
and institutions of other countries, must have emancipated his mind 
from the extensive and powerful dominions of association, must 
have extinguished the agreeable and deceitful feelings of national 
vanity, and cultivated that patient humility which builds general 
inferences only upon the repetition of individual facts. Everything 

' t From a review of " Lettres sur rAngleterre. Par J. Fievee." Ed. Rev. 
April, 1803. 



110 CAUSES OP ERROR. 

he sees shocks some passion or natters it ; and he is perpetually 
seduced to distort facts, so as to render them agreeable to his sys- 
tem and his feelings ! Books of travels are now published in such 
vast abundance, that it may not be useless, perhaps, to state a few 
of the reasons why their value so commonly happens to be in the 
inverse ratio of their number. 

1st. Travels are bad, from a want of opportunity for observation 
in those who write them. If the sides of a building are to be 
measured, and the number of its windows to be counted, a very 
short space of time may suffice for these operations ; but to gain 
such a knowledge of their prevalent opinions and propensities, as 
will enable a stranger to comprehend (what is commonly called) 
the genius of people, requires a long residence among them, a 
familiar acquaintance with their language, and an easy circulation 
among their various societies. The society into which a transient 
stranger gains the most easy access in any country, is not often that 
which ought to stamp the national character ; and no criterion can 
be more fallible, in a people so reserved and inaccessible as the 
British, who (even when they open their doors to letters of intro- 
duction) cannot for years overcome the awkward timidity of their 
nature. The same expressions are of so different a value in differ- 
ent countries, the same actions proceed from such different causes, 
and produce such different effects, that a judgment of foreign nations, 
founded on rapid observation, is almost certainly a mere tissue of 
ludicrous and disgraceful mistakes ; and yet a residence of a month 
or two seems to entitle a traveller to present the world with a pic- 
ture of manners in London, Paris, or Vienna, and even to dogma- 
tize upon the political, religious, and legal institutions, as if it were 
one and the same thing to speak of abstract effects of such institu- 
tions, and of their effects combined with all the peculiar circum- 
stances in which any nation may be placed. 

2dly. An affectation of quickness in observation, an intuitive 
glance that requires only a moment, and a part, to judge of a per- 
petuity, and a whole. The late Mr. Petion, who was sent over in- 
to this country to acquire a knowledge of our criminal law, is said 
to have declared himself thoroughly informed upon the subject af- 
ter remaining precisely two-and-thirty minutes in the Old Bailey. 

3dly. The tendency to found observation on a system, rather 



A CEYLONESE DUTCHMAN. Ill 

than a system upon observation. The fact is, there are very few 
original eyes and ears. The great mass see and hear as they are 
directed by others, and bring back from a residence in foreign 
countries nothing but the vague and customary notions concerning 
it, which are carried and brought back for half a century, without 
verification or change. The most ordinary shape in which this 
tendency to prejudge makes its appearance among travellers, is by 
a disposition to exalt, or, a still more absurd disposition to depre- 
ciate their native country. They are incapable of considering a 
foreign people but under one single point of view — the relation in 
which they stand to their own ; and the whole narrative is fre- 
quently nothing more than a mere triumph of national vanity, or 
the ostentation of superiority to so common a failing. 



INHABITANTS OF CEYLON.* 

Ceylon is now inhabited by the English ; the remains of the 
Dutch and Portuguese, the Cinglese or natives, subject to the do- 
minion of the Europeans ; the Candians, subject to the king of 
their own name ; and the Vaddahs, or wild men, subject to no 
power. A Ceylonese Dutchman is a coarse, grotesque species of 
animal, whose native apathy and phlegm is animated only by the 
insolence of a colonial tyrant : his. principal amusement appears to 
consist in smoking ; but his pipe, according to Mr. Percival's ac- 
count, is so seldom out of his mouth, that his smoking appears to 
be almost as much a necessary function of animal life as his breath- 
ing. His day is eked out with gin, ceremonious visits, and prodi- 
gious quantities of gross food, dripping with oil and butter; his mind, 
just able to reach from one meal to another, is incapable of further 
exertion ; and, after the panting and deglutition of a long-protract- 
ed dinner, reposes on the sweet expectation that, in a few hours, 
the carnivorous toil will be renewed. He lives only to digest, and, 
while the organs of gluttony perform their office, he has not a 
wish beyond ; and is the happy man which Horace describes : — 
in seipso totus, teres, atquc rotundus. 

The descendants of the Portuguese differ materially from the 

* From a review of "An Account of the Island of Ceylon, by Robert Per- 
cival." Ed. Rev., April, 1803. 






112 MALAYS. 

Moors, Malabars, and other Mahometans. Their great object is 
to show the world they are Europeans and Christians. Unfortu- 
nately, their ideas of Christianity are so imperfect, that the only 
mode they can hit upon of displaying their faith, is by wearing hats 
and breeches, and by these habiliments they consider themselves 
as showing a proper degree of contempt, on various parts of the 
body, toward Mahomet and Buddha. They are lazy, treacherous, 
effeminate, and passionate to excess ; and are, in fact, a locomotive 
and animated farrago of the bad qualities of all tongues, people, and 
nations on the face of the earth. 

The Malays, whom we forgot before to enumerate, form a very 
considerable portion of the inhabitants of Ceylon. Their original 
empire lies in the peninsula of Malacca, from whence they have ex- 
tended themselves over Java, Sumatra, the Moluccas, and a vast 
number of other islands in the peninsula of India. It has been 
many years customary for the Dutch to bring them to Ceylon, for 
the purpose of carrying on various branches of trade and manufac- 
ture, and in order also to employ them as soldiers and servants 
The Malays are the most vindictive and ferocious of living beings. 
They set little or no value on their own existence, in the prosecu- 
tion of their odious passions ; and having thus broken the great tie 
which renders man a being capable of being governed, and fit for 
society, they are a constant source of terror to all those who have 
any kind of connection or relation with them. A Malay servant, 
from the apprehension excited by his vindictive disposition, often 
becomes the master of his master. It is as dangerous to dismiss 
him as to punish him ; and the rightful despot, in order to avoid 
assassination, is almost compelled to exchange characters with his 
slave. It is singular, however, that the Malay, incapable of sub- 
mission on any other occasion, and ever ready to avenge insult 
with death, submits to the severest military discipline with the ut- 
most resignation and meekness. The truth is, obedience to his 
officers forms part of his religious creed ; and the same man who 
would repay the most insignificant insult with death, will submit 
to be lacerated at the halbert with the patience of a martyr. This 
is truly a tremendous people ! When assassins and blood-hounds 
will fall into rank and file, and the most furious savages submit 
(with no diminution of their ferocity) to the science and discipline 
of war, they only want a Malay Buonaparte to lead them to the 



MADAME DE STAEL. 113 

conquest of the world. Our curiosity has always been very highly 
excited by the accounts of this singular people; and we cannot 
help thinking that, one day or another, when they are more full 
of opium than usual, they will run a muck from Cape Comorin to 
the Caspian. 



MADAME DE STAEl/s DELPHINE.* 

This dismal trash, which has nearly dislocated the jaws of every 
critic among us with gaping, has so alarmed Buonaparte, that he 
has seized the whole impression, sent Madame de Stael out of 
Paris, and, for aught we know, sleeps in a night-cap of steel and 
dagger-proof blankets. To us it appears rather an attack upon 
-the Ten Commandments than the government of Buonaparte, and 
calculated not so much to enforce the rights of the Bourbons, as the 
benefits of adultery, murder, and a great number of other vices, 
which have been, some how or other, strangely neglected in this 
country, and too much so (according to the apparent opinion of 
Madame de Stael) even in France. 

It happens, however, fortunately enough^ that her book is as 
dull as it could have been if her intentions had been good ; for wit, 
dexterity, and the pleasant energies of the mind, seldom rank 
themselves on the side of virtue and social order ; while vice is 
spiritual, eloquent, and alert, ever choice in expression, happy in 
allusion, and judicious in arrangement. 

The story is simply this : — Delphine, a rich young widow, pre- 
sents her cousin, Matilda de Yernon, with a considerable estate, in 
order to enable her to marry Leonce Mondeville. To this action 
she is excited by the arts and the intrigues of Madame de Vernon, 
a hackneyed Parisian lady, who hopes, by this marriage, to be 
able to discharge her numerous and pressing debts. Leonce, who, 
like all other heroes of novels, Jaas fine limbs and fine qualities, 
comes to Paris — dislikes Matilda — falls in love with Delphine, 
Delphine with him ; and they are upon the eve of jilting poor Ma- 
tilda, when, from some false reports spread abroad respecting the 
character of Delphine (which are aggravated by her own impru- 
dences, and by the artifices of Madame de Vernon), Leonce, not in 

* Delphine. By Madame de Stael Holstcin. London, Mawman. 6 vols. 
12mo. Ed. Rev., April, 1803. 



114 DELPHINE. 

a fit of honesty, but of revenge, marries the lady whom he came to 
marry. Soon after. Madame de Yernon dies — discovers the arti- 
fices by which she had prevented the union of Leonce and Del- 
phine — and then, after this catastrophe, which ought to have 
terminated the novel, come two long volumes of complaint and 
despair. Delphine becomes a nun — runs away from the nunnery 
with Leonce, who is taken by some French soldiers, upon the 
supposition that he has been serving in the French emigrant army 
against his country — is shot, and upon his dead body falls Del- 
phine, as dead as he. 

Making every allowance for reading this book in a translation, 
and in a very bad translation, we cannot but deem it a heavy per- 
formance. The incidents are vulgar ; the characters vulgar, too, 
except those of Delphine and Madame de Vernon. Madame de 
Stael has not the artifice to hide what is coming. In travelling 
through a flat country, or a flat book, we see our road before us 
for half the distance we are going. There, are no agreeable sinu- 
osities, and no speculations whether we are to ascend next, or 
descend ; what new sight we are to enjoy, or to which side we are 
to bend. Leonce is robbed and half-murdered; the apothecary 
of the place is certain he will not live ; we were absolutely certain 
that he would live, and could predict to an hour the time of his 
recovery. In the same manner we could have prophesied every 
event of the book a whole volume before its occurrence. 

This novel is a perfect Alexandrian. The last two volumes 
are redundant, and drag their wounded length : it should certainly 
have terminated where the interest ceases, at the death of Madame 
de Yernon ; but, instead of this, the scene-shifters come and pick 
up the dead bodies, wash the stage, sweep it, and do everything 
which the timely fall of the curtain should have excluded from the 
sight, and left to the imagination of the audience. We humbly 
apprehend, that young gentlemen do not, in general, make their 
tutors the confidants of their passion ; at least we can find no rule 
of that kind laid down either by Miss Hamilton or Miss Edge- 
worth, in their treatises on education. The tutor of Leonce is Mr. 
Barton, a grave old gentleman, in a peruke and snuff-coloured 
clothes. Instead of writing to this solemn personage about second 
causes, the ten categories, and the eternal fitness of things, the 
young lover raves to him, for whole pages, about the white neck 



TALLEYRAND. 115 

and auburn hair of lis Delphine ; and, shame to tell ! the liquorish 
old pedagogue seems to think these amorous ebullitions the pleas- 
antest sort of writing in usum Delphini that he has yet met with. 
By altering one word, and making only one false quantity,* we 
shall change the rule of Horace to 

"TXecfebris intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus 
Incident." 

Delphine and Leonce have eight very bad typhus fevers between 
them, besides hcemoptoe, hemorrhage, deli'quium animi, singultus, 
hysteria, and fozminei ululatus, or screams innumerable. Now, 
that there should be a reasonable allowance of sickness in every 
novel, we are willing to admit, and will cheerfully permit the hero- 
ine to be once given over, and at the point of death ; but we cannot 
consent that the interest which ought to be excited by the feelings 
of the mind should be transferred to the sufferings of the body, and 
a crisis of perspiration be substituted for a crisis of passion. Let 
us see difficulties overcome, if our approbation is required ; we 
cannot grant it to such cheap and sterile artifices as these. 

The characters in this novel are all said to be drawn from real 
life ; and the persons for whom they are intended are loudly whis- 
pered at Paris. Most of them we have forgotten ; but Delphine 
is said to be intended for the authoress, and Madame de Vernon 
(by a slight sexual metamorphosis) for Talleyrand, minister of the 
French republic for foreign affairs.f As this lady (once the friend 
of the authoress) may probably exercise a considerable influence 
over the destinies of this country, we shall endeavour to make our 
readers a little better acquainted with her ; but we must first re- 
mind them that she was once a bishop, a higher dignity in the 
church than was ever attained by any of her sex since the days 
of Pope Joan ; and that though she swindles Delphine out of her 
estate with a considerable degree of address, her dexterity some- 

* Perhaps a fault of all others which the English are least disposed to par- 
don. A young man who, on a public occasion, makes a false quantity at the 
outset of life, can seldom or never get over it. — Author's Note. 

t Madame de Stael, on meeting Talleyrand at an evening party after the 
publication of this book, was addressed by the ci-devant Bishop with "Eh, 
Madame, on dlt que nous sommes tons Irs deux dans voire livre deguises en 
femmes." 



116 IMMORALITY OF A BOOK. 

times fails her, as in the memorable instance of the American com- 
missioners. Madame de Stael gives the following description of 
this pastoral metropolitan female : 

" Though she is at least forty, she still appears charming even among the 
young and beautiful of her own sex. The paleness of her complexion, the 
slight relaxation of her features, indicate the languor of indisposition, and not 
the decay of years ; the easy negligence of her dress accords with this impres- 
sion. Every one concludes, that when her health is recovered, and she dresses 
with more care, she must be completely beautiful: this change, however, 
never happens, but it is always expected ; and that is sufficient to make the 
imagination still add something more to the natural effect of her charms." — 
(Yol. i., p. 21.) 

Nothing can be more execrable than the manner in which this 
book is translated. The bookseller has employed one of our 
countrymen for that purpose, who appears to have been very lately 
caught. The contrast between the passionate exclamations of 
Madame de Stael, and the barbarous vulgarities of poor Sawney, 
produces a mighty ludicrous effect. One of the heroes, a man of 
high fastidious temper, exclaims in a letter to Delphine, " I cannot 
endure this Paris ; I have met with ever so many people, whom 
my soul abhors." And the accomplished and enraptured Leonce 
terminates one of his letters thus ; a Adieu ! Adieu, my dearest 
Delphine/ I ivill give you a call to-morrow. 5 ' We doubt if 
Grub street ever imported from Caledonia a more abominable 
translator. 

We admit the character of Madame de Vernon to be drawn 
with considerable skill. There are occasional traits of eloquence 
and pathos in this novel, and very many of those observations upon 
manners and character, which are totally out of the reach of all 
who have not lived long in the world, and observed it well. 

The immorality of any book (in our estimation) is to be deter- 
mined by the general impression it leaves on those minds, whose 
principles, not yet ossified, are capable of affording a less powerful 
defence to its influence. The most dangerous effect that any fic- 
titious character can produce, is when two or three of its popular 
vices are varnished over with everything that is captivating and 
gracious in the exterior, and ennobled by association with splendid 
virtues ; this apology will be more sure of its effect, if the faults 
are not against nature, but against society. The aversion to mur- 
der and cruelty could not perhaps be so overcome ; but a regard 



CHARACTERS. 117 

to the sanctity of marriage vows, to the sacred and sensitive deli- 
cacy of the female character, and to numberless restrictions impor- 
tant to the well-being of our species, may easily be relaxed by this 
subtle and voluptuous confusion of good and evil. It is in vain to 
say the fable evinces, in the last act, that vice is productive of mis- 
ery. We may decorate a villain with graces and felicities for nine 
volumes and hang him in the last page. This is not teaching vir- 
tue, but gilding the gallows, and raising up splendid associations 
in favour of being hanged. In such a union of the amiable and 
the vicious (especially if the vices are such, to the commission of 
which there is no want of natural disposition), the vice will not de- 
grade the man, but the man will ennoble the vice. We shall wish 
to be him we admire, in spite of his vices, and, if the novel be well 
written, even in consequence of his vice. There exists, through the 
whole of this novel, a show of exquisite sensibility to the evils 
which individuals suffer by the inflexible rules of virtue prescribed 
by society, and an eager disposition to apologize for particular 
transgressions. Such doctrine is not confined to Madame de Stael; 
an Arcadian cant is gaining fast upon Spartan gravity ; and the 
happiness diffused, and the beautiful order established in society, by 
this unbending discipline, are wholly swallowed up in compassion 
for the unfortunate and interesting individual. Either the excep- 
tions or the rule must be given up : every highwayman who thrusts 
his pistol into a chaise-window has met with unforeseen misfor- 
tunes ; and every loose matron who flies into the arms of her 
Greville was compelled to marry an old man whom she detested, 
by an avaricious and unfeeling father. The passions want not ac- 
celerating, but retarding machinery. This fatal and foolish sophis- 
try has power enough over every heart, not to need the aid of 
fine composition, and well-contrived incident — auxiliaries which 
Madame de Stael intended to bring forward in the cause, though 
she has fortunately not succeeded. 

M. de Serbellone is received as a guest into the house of M. 
d'Ervins, whose wife he debauches as a recompense for his hospi- 
tality. Is it possible to be disgusted with ingratitude and injustice, 
when united to such an assemblage of talents and virtues as this 
man of paper possesses ? Was there ever a more delightful, fas- 
cinating adultress than Madame d'Ervins is intended to be ? or a 
povero cornuto less capable of exciting compassion than her hus- 



118 THE LESSON OF DELPHINE. 

band ? The morality of all this is the old morality of Farquhar, 
Vanburgh, and Congreve — that every witty man may transgress 
the seventh commandment, which was never meant for the protec- 
tion of husbands who labour under the incapacity of making repar- 
tees. In Matilda, religion is always as unamiable as dissimulation 
is graceful in Madame de Vernon, and imprudence generous in 
Delphine. This said Delphine, with her fine auburn hair, and her 
beautiful blue or green eyes (we forget which), cheats her cousin 
Matilda out of her lover, alienates the affections of her husband, 
and keeps a sort of assignation house for Serbellone and his chere 
amie, justifying herself by the most touching complaints against 
the rigour of the world, and using the customary phrases, union 
of souls, married in the eye of heaven, &c, &c, &c, and such 
like diction, the types of which Mr. Lane, of the Minerva Press, 
very prudently keeps ready composed, in order to facilitate the 

printing of the Adventures of Captain C and Miss F , 

and other interesting stories, of which he, the said inimitable Mr. 
Lane, of the Minerva Press, well knows these sentiments must 
make a part. Another perilous absurdity which this useful pro- 
duction tends to cherish, is the common notion, that contempt of 
rule and order is a proof of greatness of mind. Delphine is 
everywhere a great spirit struggling with the shackles imposed 
upon her, in common with the little world around her ; and it is 
managed so that her contempt of restrictions shall always appear 
to flow from the extent, variety, and splendour of her talents. 
The vulgarity of this heroism ought, in some degree, to diminish 
its value. Mr. Colquhoun, in his Police of the Metropolis, reck- 
ons up above forty thousand heroines of this species, most of whom, 
we dare to say, have, at one time or another, reasoned like the sen- 
timental Delphine about the judgments of the world. 

To conclude — Our general opinion of this book is, that it is 
calculated to shed a mild lustre over adultery ; by gentle and con- 
venient gradation, to destroy the modesty and the caution of 
women ; to facilitate the acquisition of easy vices, and encumber 
the difficulty of virtue. What a wretched qualification of this 
censure to add, that the badness of the principles is alone corrected 
by the badness of the style, and that this celebrated lady would 
have been very guilty, if she had not been very dull ! 



SMALL-TOOTH COMBS. 119 

USE OF RIDICULE.* 

We are a good deal amused, indeed, with the extreme disrelish 
which Mr. John Style sf exhibits to the humour and pleasantry 
with which he admits the Methodists to haye been attacked ; but 
Mr. John Styles should remember, that it is not the practice with 
destroyers of vermin to allow the little victims a veto upon the 
weapons used against them. If this were otherwise, we should 
have one set of vermin banishing small-tooth combs ; another 
protesting against mouse-traps : a third prohibiting the finger and 
thumb ; a fourth exclaiming against the intolerable infamy of using 
soap and water. It is impossible, however, to listen to such pleas. 
They must all be caught, killed, and cracked, in the manner, and 
by the instruments which are found most efficacious to their de- 
struction ; and the more they cry out, the greater, plainly, is the 
skill used against them. We are convinced a little laughter will 
do them more harm than all the arguments in the world. Sucli 
men as the author before us, cannot understand when they are out- 
argued ; but he has given us a specimen, from his irritability, that 
he fully comprehends when he has become the object of universal 
contempt and derision. We agree with him, that ridicule is not 
exactly the weapon to be used in matters of religion ; but the use 
of it is excusable, when there is no other which can make fools 
tremble. J 

* From an article on " Methodism." Ed. Rev., 1809. 

t Strictures on two Critiques in the Edinburgh Review, on the Subject of 
Methodism and Missions ; with Remarks on the Influence of Reviews, in 
general, on Morals and Happiness. By John Styles. 8vo. London, 1809. 

\ Smith repeats the "small-tooth comb" illustration in his handling of Dr. 
Monk, Bishop of Gloucester, in the Third Letter to Archdeacon Single- 
ton. Mr. Styles was again the subject of a literary agitation in 1839, when, 
having become the Rev. John Styles, D.D., he published, under the aus- 
pices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a prize Es- 
say entitled, "The Animal Creation, its Claims on our Humanity Stated 
and Enforced." The tract was replied to in "A Pamphlet, dedicated to 
the Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Sportsmen of England, Ireland, and Scot- 
land/' by the Hon. Grantlcy Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M. P. The subject is 
roughly reviewed in an article, " Sydney Smith, John Styles, and Grantlcy 
Berkeley," in Eraser's Magazine, August, 18.39. The Rev. Dr. Styles was 
a dissenting clergyman of note, the author of various published discourses 
of an occasional character. He also published a Life of David Brainerd, and 
a Family Bible, with illustrative notes, in two volumes quarto. 



120 AUTHORS AND THE ARK. 

ANTEDILUVIAN AUTHORSHIP.* 

There are occasionally, in Philopatris, a great vigour of style 
and felicity of expression. His display of classical learning is 
quite unrivalled — his reading various and good; and we may 
observe, at intervals, a talent for wit, of which he might have 
availed himself to excellent purpose, had it been compatible with 
the dignified style in which he generally conveys his sentiments. 
With all these excellent qualities of head and heart, we have sel- 
dom met with a writer more full of faults than Philopatris. There 
is an event recorded in the Bible, which men who write books 
should keep constantly in their remembrance. It is there set 
forth, that many centuries ago, the earth was covered with a great 
flood, by which the whole of the human race, with the exception 
of one family, were destroyed. It appears also, that from thence, a 
great alteration was made in the longevity of mankind, who, from a 
range of seven or eight hundred years, which they enjoyed before 
the flood, were confined to their present period of seventy or eighty 
years. This epoch in the history of man gave birth to the twofold 
division of the antediluvian and postdiluvian style of writing, the 
latter of which naturally contracted itself into those inferior limits 
which were better accommodated to the abridged duration of human 
life and literary labour. Now, to forget this event — to write with- 
out the fear of the deluge before his eyes, and to handle a subject 
as if mankind could lounge over a pamphlet for ten years, as before 
their submersion — is to be guilty of the most grievous error into 
which a writer can possibly fall.f The author of this book should 
call in the aid of some brilliant pencil, and cause the distressing 
scenes of the deluge to be portrayed in the most lively colours for 
his use. He should gaze at Noah and be brief. The ark should 
constantly remind him of the little time there is left for reading ; 
and he should learn, as they did in the ark, to crowd a great deal 
of matter into a very little compass. 

* From a review of Characters of the late Charles James Fox, by Philo- 
patris Varvicensis (Dr. Parr). Ed. Kev., 1809. 

t Macaulay has borrowed this illustration. In a review (Ed. Bev., 1832) 
of Wares' Memoirs of Lord Burghley, he has : " Such a book might, before the 
deluge, have been considered as light reading by Hilpa and Shalum. But, 
unhappily, the life of man is now three score years and ten : and we cannot 
but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand from us so large a por- 
tion of so short an existence." 



THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 121 

ENGLISH CLASSICAL EDUCATION.* 

There are two questions which grow out of this subject: 1st, 
How far is any sort of classical education useful ? 2d, How far 
is that particular classical education adopted in this country useful ? 

Latin and Greek are, in the first place, useful, as they inure 
children to intellectual difficulties, and make the life of a young 
student what it ought to be, a life of considerable labour. We do 
not, of course, mean to confine this praise exclusively to the study 
of Latin and Greek; or to suppose that other difficulties might 
not be found which it would be useful to overcome : but though 
Latin and Greek have this merit in common with many arts and 
sciences, still they have it ; and, if they do nothing else, they at 
least secure a solid and vigorous application at a period of life 
which materially influences all other periods. 

To go through the grammar of one language thoroughly is of 
great use for the mastery of every other grammar ; because there 
obtains, through all languages, a certain analogy to each other in 
their grammatical construction. Latin and Greek have now 
mixed themselves etymologically with all the languages of modern 
Europe — and with none more than our own; so that it is neces- 
sary to read these two tongues for other objects than themselves. 

The two ancient languages are, as mere inventions — as pieces of 
mechanism — incomparably more beautiful than any of the modern 
languages of Europe : their mode of signifying time and case by 
terminations, instead of auxiliary verbs and particles, would of 
itself stamp their superiority. Add to this, the copiousness of the 
Greek language, with the fancy, majesty, and harmony of its com- 
pounds ; and there are quite sufficient reasons why the classics 
should be studied for the beauties of language. Compared to 
them, merely as vehicles of thought and passion, all modern lan- 
guages are dull, ill-contrived, and barbarous. 

That a great part of the Scriptures has come down to us in the 
Greek language, is of itself a reason, if all others were wanting, 
why education should be planned so as to produce a supply of 
Greek scholar-. 

The cultivation of style is very justly made a part of education. 

* From an article " Professional Education." Ed. Rev., Oct., 1809. 

6 



122 TOO MUCH LATIN AND GREEK. 

Ever ything which is written is meant either to please or to instruct. 
The second object it is difficult to effect, without attending to the 
first ; and the cultivation of style is the acquisition of those rules 
and literary habits which sagacity anticipates, or experience shows, 
to be the most effectual means of pleasing. Those works are the 
best which have longest stood the test of time, and pleased the 
greatest number of exercised minds. Whatever, therefore, our 
conjectures may be, we cannot be so sure that the best modern 
writers can afford us as good models as the ancients ; — we cannot 
be certain that they will live through the revolutions of the world, 
and continue to please in every climate — under every species of 
government — through every stage of civilization. The moderns 
have been well taught by their masters ; but the time is hardly yet 
come when the necessity for such instruction no longer exists. 
We may still borrow descriptive power from Tacitus; dignified 
perspicuity from Livy ; simplicity from Csesar ; and from Homer 
some portion of that light and heat which, dispersed into ten thou- 
sand channels, has filled the world with bright images and illustri- 
ous thoughts. Let the cultivator of modern literature addict him- 
self to the purest models of taste which France, Italy, and Eng- 
land could supply, he might still learn from Virgil to be majestic, 
and from Tibullus to be tender ; he might not yet look upon the 
face of nature as Theocritus saw it; nor might he reach those 
springs of pathos! with which Euripides softened the hearts of his 
audience. In short, it appears to us, that there are so many excel- 
lent reasons why a certain number of scholars should be kept up 
in this and in every civilized country, that we should consider 
every system of education from which classical education was ex- 
cluded, as radically erroneous and completely absurd. 

That vast advantages, then, may be derived from classical learn- 
ing, there can be no doubt. The advantages which are derived 
from classicallearning by the English manner of teaching, involve 
another and a very different question ; and we will venture to say, 
that there never was a more complete instance in any country of 
such extravagant and overacted attachment to any branch of 
knowledge as that which obtains in this country with regard to 
classical knowledge. A young Englishman goes to school at six 
or seven years old ; and he remains in a course of education till 
twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. In all that time, his 



LATIN VERSES. 123 

sole and exclusive occupation is learning Latin and Greek :* he 
has scarcely a notion that there is any other kind of excellence ; 
and the great system of facts with which he is the most perfectly 
acquainted, are the intrigues of the heathen gods : with whom Pan 
slept? — with whom Jupiter? — whom Apollo ravished? These 
facts the English youth get by heart the moment they quit the 
nursery ; and are most sedulously and industriously instructed in 
them till the best and most active part of life is passed away. 
Now, this long career of classical learning, we may, if we please, 
denominate a foundation ; but it is a foundation so far above ground, 
that there is absolutely no room to put anything upon it. If you 
occupy a man with one thing till he is twenty-four years of age, 
you have exhausted all his leisure time : he is called into the world, 
and compelled to act ; or is surrounded with pleasures, and thinks 
and reads no more. If you have neglected to put other things in 
him, they will never get in afterward ; — if you have fed him only 
with words, he will remain a narrow and limited being to the end 
of his existence. 

The bias given to men's minds is so strong, that it is no uncom- 
mon thing to meet with Englishmen, whom, but for their gray 
hairs and wrinkles, we might easily mistake for schoolboys. Their 
talk is of Latin verses ; and it is quite clear, if men's ages are to 
be dated from the state of their mental progress, that such men are 
eighteen years of age, and not a day older. Their minds have 
been so completely possessed by exaggerated notions of classical 
learning, that they have not been able, in the great school of the 
world, to form any other notion of real greatness. Attend, too, to 
the public feelings — look to all the terms of applause. A learned 
man! — a scholar! — a man of erudition! Upon whom are these 
epithets of approbation bestowed? Are they given to men ac- 
quainted with the science of government ? thoroughly masters of 
the geographical and commercial relations of Europe ? to men who 
know the properties of bodies, and their action upon each other ? 
No: this is not learning: it is chemistry or political ccconomy — 
not learning. The distinguishing abstract term, the epithet of 
scholar, is reserved for him who writes on the (Eolic reduplication, 

* Unless he goes to the University of Cambridge ; and then classics occupy 
him entirely for about ten years ; and divide him with mathematics for four or 
five more. 



124 MEANS AND ENDS. 

and is familiar with the Sylburgian method of arranging defectives 
in (0 and \ii. The picture which a young Englishman, addicted to 
the pursuit of knowledge, draws — his beau ideal of human nature 
— his top and consummation of man's powers — is a knowledge of 
the Greek language. His object is not to reason, to imagine, or 
to invent ; but to conjugate, decline, and derive. The situations 
of imaginary glory which he draws for himself, are the detection 
of an anapaest in the wrong place, or the restoration of a dative 
case which Cranzius had passed over, and the never-dying Ernesti 
failed to observe. If a young classic of this kind were to meet the 
greatest chemist or the greatest mechanician, or the most profound 
political economist of his time, in company with the greatest Greek 
scholar, would the slightest comparison between them ever come 
across his mind? — would he ever dream that such men as Adam 
Smith or Lavoisier were equal in dignity of understanding to, or- 
of the same utility as, Bentley and Heyne ? We are inclined to 
think, that the feeling excited would be a good deal like that which 
was expressed by Dr. George about the praises of the great King 
of Prussia, who entertained considerable doubt whether the King, 
with all his victories, knew how to conjugate a Greek verb in fit. 

Another misfortune of classical learning, as taught in England, 
is, that scholars have come, in process of time, and from the effects 
of association, to love the instrument better than the end ; — not the 
luxury which the difficulty encloses, but the difficulty ;— not the 
filbert, but the shell ; — not what may be read in Greek, but Greek 
itself. It is not so much the man who has mastered the wisdom 
of the ancients, that is valued, as he who displays his knowledge 
of the vehicle in which that wisdom is conveyed. The glory is to 
show I am a scholar. The good sense and ingenuity I may gain 
by my acquaintance with ancient authors is matter of opinion ; but 
if I bestow an immensity of pains upon a point of accent or quan- 
tity, this is something positive ; I establish my pretensions to the 
name of a scholar, and gain the credit of learning, while I sacrifice 
all its utility. 

Another evil in the present system of classical education is the 
extraordinary perfection which is aimed at in teaching those lan- 
guages ; a needless perfection ; an accuracy which is sought for 
in nothing else. There are few boys who remain to the age of 
eighteen or nineteen at a public school, without making above ten 



EXCESS OP THE PURSUIT. 125 

thousand Latin verses ; — a greater number than is contained in the 
JEneid: and after he has made this quantity of verses in a dead 
language, unless the poet should happen to be a very weak man 
indeed, he never makes another as long as he lives. It may be 
urged, and it is urged, that this is of use in teaching the delicacies 
of the language. No doubt it is of use for this purpose, if we put 
out of view the immense time and trouble sacrificed in gaining 
these little delicacies. It would be of use that we should go on till 
fifty years of age making Latin verses, if the price of a whole life 
were not too much to pay for it. We effect our object; but we do 
it at the price of something greater than our object. And whence 
comes it, that the expenditure of life and labour is totally put out 
of the calculation, when Latin and Greek are to be attained ? In 
every other occupation, the question is fairly stated between the 
attainment, and the time employed in the pursuit; — but, in classical 
learning, it seems to be sufficient if the least possible good is gained 
by the greatest possible exertion ; if the end is anything, and the 
means everything. It is of some importance to speak and write 
French ; and innumerable delicacies would be gained by writing 
ten thousand French verses : but it makes no part of our education 
to write French poetry. It is of some importance that there should 
be good botanists ; but no botanist can repeat, by heart, the names 
of all the plants in the known world ; nor is any astronomer ac- 
quainted with the appellation and magnitude of every star in the 
map of the heavens. The only department of human knowledge 
in which there can be no excess, no arithmetic, no balance of profit 
and loss, is classical learning. 

The prodigious honour in which Latin verses are held at public 
schools, is surely the most absurd of all absurd distinctions. You 
rest all reputation upon doing that which is a natural gift, and 
which no labour can attain. If a lad won't learn the words of a 
language, his degradation in the school is a very natural punish- 
ment for his disobedience, or his indolence ; but it would be as 
reasonable to expect that all boys should be witty, or beautiful, as 
that they should be poets. In either case, it would be to make an 
accidental, unattainable, and not a very important gift of nature, 
the only, or the principal, test of merit. This is the reason why 
boys, who make a very considerable figure at school, so very often 
make no figure in the world; — and why other lads, who are 



126 WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 

passed over without notice, turn out to be valuable, important 
men. The test established in the world is widely different from 
that established in a place which is presumed to be a preparation 
for the world ; and the head of a public school, who is a perfect 
miracle to his contemporaries, finds himself shrink into absolute in- 
significance, because he has nothing else to command respect or 
regard, but a talent for fugitive poetry in a dead language. 

The present state of classical education cultivates the imagina- 
tion a great deal too much, and other habits of mind a great deal 
too little, and trains up many young men in a style of elegant 
imbecility, utterly unworthy of the talents with which nature has 
endowed them. It may be said, there are profound investigations, 
and subjects quite powerful enough for any understanding, to be 
met with in classical literature. So there are ; but no man likes 
to add the difficulties of a language to the difficulties of a subject ; 
and to study metaphysics, morals, and politics in Greek, when the 
Greek alone is study enough without them. In all foreign lan- 
guages, the most popular works are works of imagination. Even 
in the French language, which we know so well, for one serious 
work which has any currency in this country, we have twenty 
which are mere works of imagination. This is still more true in 
classical literature ; because what their poets and orators have left 
us, is of infinitely greater value than the remains of their philoso- 
phy ; for, as society advances, men think more accurately and 
deeply, and imagine more tamely ; works of reasoning advance, 
and works of fancy decay. So that the matter of fact is, that a 
classical scholar of twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, is a 
man principally conversant with works of imagination. His feel- 
ings are quick, his fancy lively, and his taste good. Talents for 
speculation and original inquiry he has none ; nor has he formed 
the invaluable habit of pushing things up to their first principles, or 
of collecting dry and unamusing facts as the materials of reasoning. 
All the solid and masculine parts of his understanding are left 
wholly without cultivation' ; he hates the pain of thinking, and sus- 
pects every man whose boldness and originality call upon him to 
defend his opinions and prove his assertions. 

A very curious argument is sometimes employed in justification 
of the learned minutise to which all young men are doomed, what- 
ever be their propensities in future life. "What are you to do with 



JUSTICE TO HUMAN LIFE. 127 

a young man up to the age of seventeen ? Just as if there was 
such a want of difficulties to overcome, and of important tastes to 
inspire, that from the mere necessity of doing something, and the 
impossibility of doing anything else, you were driven to the expe- 
dient of metre and poetry ; as if a young man within that period 
might not acquire the, modern languages, modern history, experi- 
mental philosophy, geography, chronology, and a considerable 
share of mathematics ; as if the memory of things were not more 
agreeable and more profitable than the memory of words. 

The great objection is, that we are not making the most of 
human life, when we constitute such an extensive, and such minute 
classical erudition, an indispensable article in education. Up to a 
certain point we would educate every young man in Latin and 
Greek ; but to a point far short of that to which this species of 
education is now carried. Afterward, we would grant to classical 
erudition as high honours as to every other department of knowl- 
edge, but not higher. We would place it upon a footing with 
many other objects of study ; but allow it no superiority. Good 
scholars would be as certainly produced by these means as good 
chemists, astronomers, and mathematicians are now produced, 
without any direct provision whatsoever for their production. 
Why are we to trust to the diversity of human tastes, and the 
varieties of human ambition in everything else, and distrust it in 
classics alone ? The passion for language is just as strong as any 
other literary passion. There are very good Persian and Arabic 
scholars in this country. Large heaps of trash have been dug up 
from Sanscrit ruins. We have seen, in our own times, a clergy- 
man of the University of Oxford complimenting their majesties in 
Coptic and Syrophoenician verses ; and yet w r e doubt whether 
there will be a sufficient avidity in literary men to get at the beau- 
ties of the finest writers which the world has yet seen ; and 
though the Bagvat GJteeta has (as can be proved) met with human 
beings to translate, and other human beings to read it, we think 
that, in order to secure an attention to Homer and Virgil, we must 
catch up every man — whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke 
— begin with him at six years of age, and never quit him till he 
is twenty ; making him conjugate and decline for life and death; 
and so teaching him to estimate hia progress in real wisdom as he 
can scan the verses of the Greek tragedians. 



128 DESTRUCTION OF TALENT. 

The English clergy, in whose hands education entirely rests, 
bring up the first young men of the country as if they were all to 
keep grammar-schools in little country-towns ; and a nobleman, 
upon whose knowledge and liberality the honour and welfare of 
his country may depend, is diligently worried, for half his life, 
with the small pedantry of longs and shorts. There is a timid 
and absurd apprehension, on the part of ecclesiastical tutors, of 
letting out the minds of youth upon difficult and important sub- 
jects. They fancy that mental exertion must end in religious 
skepticism; and, to preserve the principles of their pupils, they 
confine them to the safe and elegant imbecility of classical learning. 
A genuine Oxford tutor would shudder to hear his young men 
disputing upon moral and political truth, forming and pulling down 
theories, and indulging in all the boldness of youthful discussion. 
He would augur nothing from it but impiety to God and treason 
to kings. And yet, who vilifies both more than the holy poltroon 
who carefully averts from them the searching eye of reason, and 
who knows no better method of teaching the highest duties, than 
by extirpating the finest qualities and habits of the mind ? If our 
religion is a fable the sooner it is exploded the better. If our 
government is bad, it should be amended. But we have no doubt 
of the truth of the one, or of the excellence of the other ; and 
are convinced that both will be placed on a firmer basis in propor- 
tion as the minds of men are more trained to the investigation of 
truth. At present, we act with the minds of our young men as 
the Dutch did with their exuberant spices. An infinite quantity 
of talent is annually destroyed in the universities of England by 
the miserable jealousy and littleness of ecclesiastical instructors. 
It is in vain to say we have produced great men under this system. 
We have produced great men under all systems. Every Englishman 
must pass half his life in learning Latin and Greek ; and classical 
learning is supposed to have produced the talents which it has not 
been able to extinguish. It is scarcely possible to prevent great 
men from rising up under any system of education, however bad. 
Teach men demonology or astrology, and you will still have a 
certain portion of original genius, in spite of these or any other 
branches of ignorance and folly. 

There is a delusive sort of splendour in a vast body of men 
pursuing one object, and thoroughly obtaining it ; and yet, though 



CLAIMS OF SCIENCE. 129 

it be very splendid, it is far from being useful. Classical literatuie 
is the great object at Oxford. Many minds so employed have pro- 
duced many works and much fame in that department ; but if all 
liberal arts and sciences useful to human life had been taught there 
— if some had dedicated themselves to chemistry, some to mathe- 
matics, some to experimental philosophy — and if every attainment 
had been honoured in the mixed ratio of its difficulty and utility 
« — the system of such a University would have been much more 
valuable, but the splendour of its name something less. 

When a University has been doing useless things for a long 
time, it appears at first degrading to them to be useful. A set of 
lectures upon political economy would be discouraged in Oxford,* 
probably despised, probably not permitted. To discuss the enclo- 
sure of commons, and to dwell upon imports and exports — to 
come so near to common life, would seem to be undignified and 
contemptible. In the same manner, the Parr or the Bentley of 
his day, would be scandalized in a University to be put on a level 
with the discoverer of a neutral salt ; and yet, what other measure 
is there of dignity in intellectual labour, but usefulness and diffi- 
culty ? And what ought the term University to mean, but a place 
where every science is taught which is liberal, and at the same 
time useful to mankind ? Nothing would so much tend to bring 
classical literature within proper bounds, as a steady and invariable 
appeal to these tests in our appreciation of all human knowledge. 
The puffed-up pedant would collapse into his proper size, and the 
maker of verses, and the rememberer of words, would soon assume 
that station which is the lot of those who go up unbidden to the 
upper places of the feast. 

We should be sorry if what we have said should appear too 
contemptuous toward classical learning, which we most sincerely 
hope will always be held in great honour, in this country, though 
we certainly do not wish to it that exclusive honour which it at 
present enjoys. A great classical scholar is an ornament, and an 
important acquisition to his country ; but, in a place of education, 
we would give to all knowledge an equal chance for distinction ; 
and would trust to the varieties of human disposition that every 
science worth cultivation would be cultivated. Looking always to 
real utility as our guide, we should sec, with equal pleasure, a 

* They have since been established. 
6* 



180 OBJECTS OF EDUCATION. 

studious and inquisitive mind arranging the productions of nature, 
investigating the qualities of bodies, or mastering the difficulties 
of the learned languages. "We should not care whether he were 
chemist, naturalist, or scholar ; because we know it to be as neces- 
sary that matter should be studied, and subdued to the use of man, 
as that taste should be gratified, and imagination inflamed. 

In those who were destined for the church, we would un- 
doubtedly encourage classical learning more than in any other 
body of men ; but if we had to do with a young man going out 
into public life, we would exhort him to contemn, or at least not to 
affect, the reputation of a great scholar, but to educate himself for 
the offices of civil life. He should learn what the constitution of 
his country really was — how it had grown into its present state — 
the perils that had threatened it — the malignity that had attacked 
it — the courage that had fought for it, and the wisdom that had 
made it great. We would bring strongly before his mind the 
characters of those Englishmen who have been the steady friends 
of the public happiness ; and by their examples, would breathe 
into him a pure public taste which should keep him untainted in 
all the vicissitudes of political fortune. We would teach him to 
burst through the well-paid, and the pernicious cant of indiscrimi- 
nate loyalty; and to know his sovereign only as he discharged 
those duties, and displayed those qualities, for which the blood and 
the treasure of his people are confided to his hands. We should 
deem it of the utmost importance that his attention was directed 
to the true principles of legislation — what effect laws can produce 
upon opinions, and opinions upon laws — what subjects are fit for 
legislative interference, and when men may be left to the manage- 
ment of their own interests. The mischief occasioned by bad 
laws, and the perplexity which arises from numerous laws — the 
causes of national wealth — the relations of foreign trade — the 
encouragement of manufactures and agriculture — the fictitious 
wealth occasioned by paper credit — the laws of population — the 
management of poverty and mendicity — the use and abuse of 
monopoly — the theory of taxation — the consequences of the 
public debt. These are some of the subjects, and some of the 
branches of civil education to which we would turn the minds of 
future judges, future senators, and future noblemen. After the 
first period of life had been given up to the cultivation of the 



REPLICATION OF A REVIEWER. 131 

classics, and the reasoning powers were now beginning to evolve 
themselves, these are some of the propensities in study which we 
would endeavour to inspire. Great knowledge, at such a period 
of life, we could not convey ; but we might fix a decided taste for 
its acquisition, and a strong disposition to respect it in others. 
The formation of some great scholars we should certainly pre- 
vent, and hinder many from learning what, in a few years, they 
would necessarily forget; but this loss would be well repaid — if 
we could show the future rulers of the country that thought and 
labour which it requires to make a nation happy — or if we could 
inspire them with that love of public virtue, which, after religion, 
we most solemnly believe to be the brightest ornament of the mind 
of man. 

[The discussion which grew out of the preceding and other articles in the 
Edinburgh Review, has been already noticed (Memoir ante p. 45). The 
reader may be interested in a few passages of Smith's reply to the strictures 
of Copleston. They are taken from the article, " Calumnies Against Ox- 
ford." Ed. Rev., April, 1810.] 

REPLY TO COPLESTON. 

Come we next to the third mould or crucible into which this 
Oxford gentleman has poured his melted lead, — viz. his reply to 
our more general observations on the use and abuse of classical 
learning, and on the undue importance assigned to it in English 
education ; and as this part of his work is more remarkable than 
the rest for its ostentatious dullness, and its gross departure from 
the language and manners of a gentleman, we must be excused for 
bestowing on it a little more of our time than we are in the habit 
of wasting on such men and such things 

Admitting that a young man, though occupied in overcoming 
verbal difficulties, has acquired the same real knowledge as if his 
path had been completely without obstruction — what is all this 
to the purpose? Our objection is not, that classical knowledge 
is not a good, but that it is not the only good. We contend that 
all young men need not be made great classical scholars ; that 
some may be allowed to deviate into mathematical knowledge — 
some into chemistry, some into natural philosophy — some into po- 
litical economy — some into modern languages; that all these oc- 
cupations, though not, perhaps, superior in importance to classical 



132 CRANZIUS AND ERNESTI. 

erudition, are not inferior to it; that we are making only one 
article, when we ought to be making many ; that the sole occupa- 
tion of all young Englishmen, educated at Oxford, is to become 
Latin and Greek scholars. Of the verses so much admired, and 
so indiscreetly quoted by this gentleman, we shall only say, 

Tale tuum nobis carmen, divine poeta, 
Quale sopor. 

The encomiast should remember, that his great model was remark- 
ably careful of committing himself in print : and again and again 
we warn our author to beware of opportunities ; they will, one day 
or another, prove his ruin. 

We did not say that poetry only is read in classical education ; 
but that the most valuable works which the ancients have left us, 
are their works of fancy ; that these are, beyond all comparison, 
more read than their works either of history or philosophy ; and 
that this, joined to the horrible absurdity of verse-making, does 
(where classical education does not end in downright pedantry) 
often make it a mere cultivation of the imagination at the expense 
of every other faculty. Sometimes, indeed, as in the melancholy 
instance before us, this price is paid for imagination, and the arti- 
cle never delivered. 

Shocked and alarmed as this monk, or rather let us say, this 
nun, is with the mention of the amours of Pan and Jupiter — we 
must still maintain, that the loves of the heathen gods and god- 
desses are the principal subjects by which the attention of young 
men is engaged in the first years of education. We are sorry to 
call up a blush into the face of this sly tutor ; but the fact is as we 
state it. 

The observations of this writer are, like children's cradles — fa- 
miliar to old women — sometimes empty — sometimes full of noisy 
imbecility — and often lulling to sleep. There never, perhaps, 
was a more striking instance of silly and contemptible pedantry, 
than the long, dull and serious answer which he has taken the 
trouble to make to our joke about Cranzius, and the Ernesti. 
What can it possibly signify, whether we used the name of one 
great fool, or of another great fool ? Let this writer put his own 
name to his productions, and it shall take the place of Cranzius in 
our next edition 

One who passes for a great man in a little place, generally 



A BARNDOOR FOWL. 133 

makes himself very ridiculous when he ventures out of it. Nothing 
can exceed the pomp and trash of this gentleman's observations ; 
they can only proceed from the habit of living with third-rate per- 
sons ; from possessing the right of compelling boys to listen to 
him ; and from making a very cruel use of this privilege. More 
equal company could never have made him an able man ; but they 
would soon have persuaded him to hold his tongue. That there is 
something in this gentleman, we do not deny ; but he does not ap- 
pear to us to have the slightest conception how very little that 
something is, nor in what his moderate talents consist. He is 
evidently intended for a plain, plodding, everyday personage — to 
do no foolish things — and to say no wise ones — to walk in the 
cart-harness that is prepared for him — and to step into every com- 
monplace notion that prevails in the times in which he happens 
to exist. If he would hold his tongue, and carefully avoid all op- 
portunities of making a display, he is just the description of person 
to enjoy a very great reputation among those whose good opinion 
is not worth having. Unfortunately, he must pretend to liberality 
— to wit — to eloquence — and to fine writing. He must show his 
brother-tutors that he is not afraid of Edinburgh Reviewers. If 
he returns rolled in the mud, broken-headed, and bellowing with 
pain, who has he but himself to blame? 

He who has seen a barn-door fowl flying — and only he — can 
form some conception of this tutor's eloquence. With his neck 
and hinder parts brought into a line — with loud screams, and all 
the agony of feathered fatness — the ponderous little glutton flaps 
himself up into the air, and, soaring four feet above the level of 
our earth, falls dull and breathless on his native dunghill. Of these 
sublime excursions, let the following suffice as specimens : 

" There are emotions which eloquence can raise, and which lead to loftier 
thoughts, and nobler aspirings, than commonly spring up in the private in- 
tercourse of men : when the latent flame of genius has been kindled by some 
transient ray, shot perhaps at random, and aimed least where it took the 
greatest effect, but which has set all the kindred sparks that lay there, in 
such a heat and stir as that no torpid indolence, or low, earthy-rooted cares, 
shall ever again smother or keep them down. From this high lineage may 
spring a never-failing race ; few, indeed, but more illustrious because they are 
few, through whom the royal blood of philosophy shall descend/' &c. &c. pp. 
148, 149. 

"We want not men who are clipped and espaliered into any form which the 



134 UTILITY OP KNOWLEDGE. 

whim of the gardener may dictate, or the narrow limits of his parterre re- 
quire. Let our saplings take their full spread, and send forth their vigorous 
shoots in all the boldness and variety of nature. Their luxuriance must be 
pruned ; their distortions rectified • the rust and canker and caterpillar of vice 
carefully kept from them ; we must dig round them, and water them, and re- 
plenish the exhaustion of the soil by continual dressing." p. 157. 

One more, and we have done for ever. 

" That finished offspring of genius starts not, like Minerva, from the head of 
Jupiter, perfect at once in stature, and clad in complete armour ; but is the 
produce of slow birth, and often of a hard delivery ; the tender nursling -of 
. many an infant year — the pupil of a severe school, formed and chastened by 
a persevering discipline." p. 129. 

"We question if mere natural dullness, unaided by punch, ever 
before produced such writing as this 

We have already shown, how very imperfectly this gentleman 
understands his own silly art of verbal criticism ; but when he 
comes upon subjects of real importance, nothing can well exceed 
the awkwardness of his movements ; — he is like a coach-horse on 
the trottoir — his feet don't seem made to stand on such places. 
The objections which he makes to the science of chemistry, are 
really curious — that it raises and multiplies the means of subsis- 
tence, and terminates merely in the bodily wants of man : in other 
words — donum raiionis divinities datum in usus humani generis 
impendit. And what, we should be glad to know, is the main ob- 
ject of most branches of human knowledge, if it be not to minister 
to the bodily wants of man ? What is the utility of mathematics, 
but as they are brought to bear upon navigation, astronomy, me- 
chanics, and so upon bodily wants ? What is the object of medi- 
cine? — what of anatomy? — what greater purposes have law 
and politics in view, but to consult our bodily wants — to protect 
those who minister to them — and to arrange the conflicting inter- 
ests and pretensions which these wants occasion ? Here is an ex- 
act instance of the mischief of verbal studies. This man has been 
so long engaged in trifles which have the most remote and faint 
connection with human affairs, that a science appears to him abso- 
lutely undignified and degrading, because it ministers to the bodily 
wants of mankind — as if one of the greatest objects of human 
wisdom had not at all times been to turn the properties of matter 
to the use of man : and then he asks, if ministration to bodily wants 
is the test of merit in any science, and a reason for its reception in 



CHEMISTRY. 135 

places of education, why the mechanical arts are excluded ? But, 
need this man; — need any man — need any boy who has been 
baptized and breeched, be told, that any single mechanical art is 
less honoured than chemistry, only because it is less useful, and at 
the same time less difficult ? — or, in other words, that every branch 
of human knowledge is estimated, not by its utility alone, but in 
the mixed ratio of its utility and its difficulty ; and that it is this very 
method of deciding upon merit, that renders the publication before 
us so utterly contemptible as it is ? 

It is impossible to follow this gentleman into all the ditches into 
which he tumbles, or through all the sloughs in which he wades. 
The critic must go on noticing only those effusions of dullness 
which are the most prominent — Summa papavera carpens. 

We are quite convinced this instructor confounds together the 
chemist of the shops and the philosophical chemist : he may be as- 
sured, however (whatever he may hear to the contrary), that they 
are two distinct classes of persons ; and that there are actually 
many ingenious persons engaged in investigating the properties of 
bodies, who never sold a mercurial powder or an ounce of glauber 
salts in their lives. By way of exercise, we would wish this writer 
to reflect, fasting, upon the alteration produced in human affairs by 
glass and by gunpowder — and then to consider whether chemistry 
is solely occupied with the bodily wants of mankind, and with the 
improvement of manufactures ; and though we are aware that his 
first guess will be, that the invention of these two substances has 
made it more easy to drink port wine, and to kill partridges, yet we 
can assure him, they have produced effects of still greater impor- 
tance to mankind. We are not indulging in any pleasantry for the 
mere sake of misleading him, but honestly stating the plain truth. 

The moment an envious pedant sees anything written with 
pleasantry, he comforts himself that it must be superficial. Whe- 
ther the Reviewer is or is not considered as a superficial person 
by competent judges, he neither knows nor cares ; but says what 
he has to say after his own manner — always confident, that, what- 
ever he may be, he shall be found out, and classed as he deserves. 
The Oxford tutor may very possibly have given a just account of 
him; but his reasons for that judgment are certainly wrong : for 
it is by no means impossible to be entertaining and instructive at 
the same time ; and the readers of this pamphlet (if any) can 



186 MEN AND WOMEN. 

never doubt, after such a specimen, how easy it is to be, in one 

small production, both very frivolous and very tiresome 

We had almost forgotten to state, that this author's substitutes 
for lectures in moral philosophy, are sermons delivered from the 
University pulpit. He appears totally ignorant of what the terms 
moral philosophy mean. But enough of him and of his ignorance. 
We leave him now to his longs^ and shorts. 

I nunc, et versus tecum meditare canoros. 



FEMALE EDUCATION.* 

A great deal has been said of the original difference of capa- 
city between men and women ; as if women were more quick, and 
men more judicious— as if women were more remarkable for 
delicacy of association, and men for stronger powers of attention. 
All this, we confess, appears to us very fanciful. That there is a 
difference in the understandings of the men and the women we 
every day meet with, everybody, we suppose, must perceive ; but 
there is none surely which may not be accounted for by the dif- 
ference of circumstances in which they have been placed, without 
referring to any conjectural difference of original conformation of 
mind. As long as boys and girls run about in the dirt, and trundle 
hoops together, they are both precisely alike. If you catch up 
one half of these creatures, and train them to a particular set of 
actions and opinions, and the other half to a perfectly opposite set, 
of course their understandings will differ, as one or the other sort 
of occupations has called this or that talent into action. There is 
surely no occasion to go into any deeper or more abstruse reason- 
ing, in order to explain so very simple a phenomenon. Taking it, 
then, for granted, that nature has been as bountiful of understand- 
ing to one sex as the other, it is incumbent on us to consider what 
are the principal objections commonly made against the communi- 
cation of a greater share of knowledge to women than commonly 
falls to their lot at present : for though it may be doubted whether 
women should learn all that men learn, the immense disparity 
which now exists between their knowledge we should hardly think 
could admit of any rational defence. -It is not easy to imagine 
that there can be any just cause why a woman of forty should be 
*Ed. Rev., Jan., 1810. 



LEISURE OF THE SEXES. 137 

more ignorant than a boy of twelve years of age. If there be 
any good at all in female ignorance, this (to use a very colloquial 
phrase) is surely too much of a good thing. 

Something in this question must depend, no doubt, upon the 
leisure which either sex enjoys for the cultivation of their under- 
standings : — and we can not help thinking, that women have fully 
as much, if not more, idle time upon their hands than men. 
Women are excluded from all the serious business of the world ; 
men are lawyers, physicians, clergymen, apothecaries, and justices 
of the peace — sources of exertion which consume a great deal 
more time than producing and suckling children ; so that, if the 
thing is a thing that ought to be done — if the attainments of litera- 
ture are objects really worthy the attention of females, they can 
not plead the want of leisure as an excuse for indolence and neg- 
lect. The lawyer who passes his day in exasperating the bicker- 
ings of Roe and Doe, is certainly as much engaged as his lady 
who has the whole of the morning before her to correct the chil- 
dren and pay the bills. The apothecary, who rushes from an act 
of phlebotomy in the western parts of the town to insinuate a bolus 
in the east, is surely as completely absorbed as that fortunate fe- 
male who is darning the garment, or preparing the repast of her 
JEsculapius at home ; and, in every degree and situation of life, it 
seems that men must necessarily be exposed to more serious de- 
mands upon their time and attention than can possibly be the case 
with respect to the other sex. We are speaking always of the 
fair demands which ought to be made upon the time and attention 
of women ; for, as the matter now stands, the time of women is 
considered as worth nothing at all. Daughters are kept to occu- 
pations in sewing, patching, mantua-making, and mending, by 
which it is impossible they can earn tenpence a day. The intel- 
lectual improvement of women is considered to be of such subordi- 
nate importance, that twenty pounds paid for needlework would 
give to a whole family leisure to acquire a fund of real knowledge. 
They are kept with nimble fingers and vacant understandings till 
the season for improvement is utterly passed away, and all chance 
of forming more important habits completely lost. We do not 
therefore say that women have more leisure than men, if it be 
necessary that they should lead the life of artisans ; but we make 
this assertion only upon the supposition, that it is of some impor- 



138 PEDANTRY. 

tance women should be instructed ; and that many ordinary occu- 
pations, for which a little money will find a better substitute, should 
be sacrificed to this consideration. 

We bar, in this discussion, any objection which proceeds from 
the mere novelty of teaching women more than they are already 
taught. It may be useless that their education should be improved, 
or it may be pernicious ; and these are the fair grounds on which 
the question may be argued. But those who cannot bring their 
minds to consider such an unusual extension of knowledge, without 
connecting with it some sensation of the ludicrous, should remem- 
ber that, in the progress from absolute ignorance, there is a period 
when cultivation of the mind is new to every rank and description of 
persons. A century ago, who would have believed that country 
gentlemen could be brought to read and spell with the ease and 
accuracy which we now so frequently remark — or supposed that 
they could be carried up even to the elements of ancient and mod- 
ern history ? Nothing is more common, or more stupid, than to 
take the actual for the possible — to believe that all which is, is all 
which can be ; first to laugh at every proposed deviation from 
practice as impossible — then, when it is carried into effect, to be 
astonished that it did not take place before. 

It is said, that the effect of knowledge is to make women pe- 
dantic and affected ; and that nothing can be more offensive than 
to see a woman stepping out of the natural modesty of her sex to 
make an ostentatious display of her literary attainments. This 
may be true enough ; but the answer is so trite and obvious, that 
we are almost ashamed to make it. All affectation and display 
proceed from the supposition of possessing something better than 
the rest of the world possesses. Nobody is vain of possessing two 
legs and two arms ; — because that is the precise quantity of either 
sort of limb which everybody possesses. Who ever heard a lady 
boast that she understood French? — for no other reason, that we 
know of, but because everybody in these days does understand 
French ; and though there may be some disgrace in being ignorant 
of that language, there is little or no merit in its acquisition. Dif- 
fuse knowledge generally among women, and you will at once cure 
the conceit which knowledge occasions while it is rare. Vanity 
and conceit we shall of course witness in men and women as long 
as the world endures : but by multiplying the attainments upon 



FORCE OF NATURE. 139 

which these feelings are founded, you increase the difficulty of in- 
dulging them, and render them much more tolerable, by making 
them the proofs of a much higher merit. When learning ceases 
to be uncommon among women, learned women will cease to be 
affected. 

A great many of the lesser and more obscure duties of life ne- 
cessarily devolve upon the female sex. The arrangement of all 
household matters, and the care of children in their early infancy, 
must of course depend upon them. Now, there is a very general 
notion, that the moment you put the education of women upon a 
better footing than it is at present, at that moment there will be an 
end of all domestic economy ; and that, if you once suffer women 
to eat of the tree of knowledge, the rest of the family will very 
soon be reduced to the same kind of aerial and unsatisfactory diet. 
These, and all such opinions, are referable to one great and com- 
mon cause of error ; that man does everything, and that nature 
does nothing ; and that everything we see is referable to positive 
institution rather than to original feeling. Can anything, for ex- 
ample, be more perfectly absurd than to suppose that the care and 
perpetual solicitude which a mother feels for her children depend 
upon her ignorance of Greek and mathematics ; and that she would 
desert an infant for a quadratic equation ? We seem to imagine 
that we can break in pieces the solemn institutions of nature, by the 
little laws of a boarding-school ; and that the existence of the hu- 
man race depends upon teaching women a little more or a little 
less ; — that Cimmerian ignorance can aid parental affection, or the 
circle of arts and sciences produce its destruction. In the same 
manner, we forget the principles upon which the love of order, ar- 
rangement, and all the arts of economy depend. They depend not 
upon ignorance nor idleness ; but upon the poverty, confusion, and 
ruin which would ensue for neglecting them. Add to these prin- 
ciples, the love of what is beautiful and magnificent, and the vanity 
of display ; — and there can surely be no reasonable doubt but that 
the order and economy of private life is amply secured from the 
perilous inroads of knowledge. 

We would fain know, too, if knowledge is to produce such bane- 
ful effects upon the material and the household virtues, why this 
influence has not already been felt? Women are much better edu- 
cated now than they were a century ago ; but they are by no means 



140 SIMPLE PLEASURES. 

less remarkable for attention to the arrangements of their house- 
hold, or less inclined to discharge the offices of parental affection. 
It would be very easy to show, that the same objection has been 
made at all times to every improvement in the education of both 
sexes, and all ranks — and been as uniformly and completely refu- 
ted by experience. A great part of the objections made to the 
education of women, are rather objections made to human nature 
than to the female sex : for it is surely true, that knowledge, where 
it produces any bad effects at all, does as much mischief to one 
sex as to the other — and gives birth to fully as much arrogance, 
inattention to common affairs, and eccentricity among men, as it 
does among women. But it by no means follows, that you get rid 
of vanity and self-conceit because you get rid of learning. Self- 
complacency can never want an excuse ; and the best way to make 
it more tolerable, and more useful, is to give to it as high and as 
dignified an object as possible. But at all events it is unfair to 
bring forward against a part of the world an objection which is 
equally powerful against the whole. When foolish women think 
they have any distinction, they are apt to be proud of it ; so are 
foolish men. But we appeal to any one who has lived with culti- 
vated persons of either sex, whether he has not witnessed as much 
pedantry, as much wrongheadedness, as much arrogance, and cer- 
tainly a great deal more rudeness, produced by learning in men, 
than in women ; therefore, we should make the accusation general 
— or dismiss it altogether ; though, with respect to pedantry, the 
learned are certainly a little unfortunate, that so very emphatic a 
word, which is occasionally applicable to all men embarked eagerly 
in any pursuit, should be reserved exclusively for them : for, as 
pedantry is an ostentatious obtrusion of knowledge, in which those 
who hear us cannot sympathize, it is a fault of which soldiers, 
sailors, sportsmen, gamesters, cultivators, and all men engaged in a 
particular occupation, are quite as guilty as scholars ; but they have 
the good fortune to have the vice only of pedantry — while schol- 
ars have both the vice and the name for it too. 

Some persons are apt to contrast the acquisition of important 
knowledge with what they call simple pleasures ; and deem it 
more becoming that a woman should educate flowers, make friend- 
ships with birds, and pick up plants, than enter into more difficult 
and fatiguing studies. If a woman have no taste and genius for 



EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 141 

higher occupations, let her engage in these to be sure rather than 
remain destitute of any pursuit. But why are we necessarily to 
doom a girl, whatever be her taste or her capacity, to one unvaried 
line of petty and frivolous occupation ? If she be full of strong 
sense and elevated curiosity, can there be any reason why she 
should be diluted and enfeebled down to a mere culler of simples, 
and fancier of birds — why books of history and reasoning are to 
be torn out of her hand, and why she is to be sent, like a but- 
terfly, to hover over the idle flowers of the field ? Such amuse- 
ments are innocent to those whom they can occupy ; but they are 
not innocent to those who have too powerful understandings to be 
occupied by them. Light broths and fruits are innocent food only 
to weak or to infant stomachs ; but they are poison to that organ 
in its perfect and mature state. But the great charm appears to 
be in the word simplicity — simple pleasure ! If by a simple pleasure 
is meant an innocent pleasure, the observation is best answered by 
showing, that the pleasure which results from the acquisition of 
important knowledge is quite as innocent as any pleasure whatever : 
but if by a simple pleasure is meant one, the cause of which can 
be easily analyzed, or which does not last long, or which in itself 
is very faint, then simple pleasures seem to be very nearly synon- 
ymous with small pleasures : and if the simplicity were to be a 
little increased, the pleasure would vanish altogether. 

As it is impossible that every man should have industry or activ- 
ity sufficient to avail himself of the advantages of education, it 
is natural that men who are ignorant themselves, should view, 
with some degree of jealousy and alarm, any proposal for improv- 
ing the education of women. But such men may depend upon it, 
however the system of female education may be exalted, that there 
will never be wanting a due proportion of failures ; and that after 
parents, guardians, and preceptors, have done all in their power to 
make everybody wise, there will still be a plentiful supply of wo- 
men who have taken special care to remain otherwise; and they 
may rest assured, if the utter extinction of ignorance and folly be 
the evil they dread, that their interests will always be effectually 
protected, in spite of every exertion to the contrary. 

We must in candour allow that (hose women who begin will 
have something more to overcome than may probably hereafter be 
the case. We cannot deny the jealousy which exists among pom- 



142 IGNORANCE. 

pous and foolish men respecting the education of women. There 
is a class of pedants who would be cut short in the estimation of 
the world a whole cubit if it were generally known that a young 
lady of eighteen could be taught to decline the tenses of the mid- 
dle voice, or acquaint herself with the iEolic varieties of that 
celebrated language. Then women have, of course, all ignorant 
men for enemies to their instruction, who being bound (as they 
think), in point of sex, to know more, are not well pleased, in point 
of fact, to know less. But, among men of sense and liberal polite- 
ness, a woman who has successfully cultivated her mind, without 
diminishing the gentleness and propriety of her manners, is always 
sure to meet with a respect and attention bordering upon en- 
thusiasm. 

There is in either sex a strong and permanent disposition to 
appear agreeable to the other : and this is the fair answer to those 
who are fond of supposing, that a higher degree of knowledge 
would make women rather the rivals than the companions of men. 
Presupposing such a desire to please, it seems much more proba- 
ble, that a common pursuit should be a fresh source of interest 
than a cause of contention. Indeed, to suppose that any mode of 
education can create a general jealousy and rivalry between the 
sexes, is so very ridiculous, that it requires only to be stated in 
order to be refuted. The same desire of pleasing secures all that 
delicacy and reserve which are of such inestimable value to 
women. "We are quite astonished, in hearing men converse on 
such subjects, to find them attributing such beautiful effects to 
ignorance. It would appear, from the tenor of such objections, 
that ignorance had been the great civilizer of the world. Women 
are delicate and refined only because they are ignorant; they 
manage their household, only because they are ignorant; they 
attend to their children, only because they know no better. Now, 
we must really confess, we have all our lives been so ignorant as 
not to know the value of ignorance. We have always attributed 
the modesty and the refined manners of women, to their being 
well taught in moral and religious duty — to the hazardous situa- 
tion in which they are placed — to that perpetual vigilance which 
it is their duty to exercise over thought, word, and action — and to 
that cultivation of the mild virtues, which those who cultivate the 
stern and magnanimous virtues expect at their hands. After all, 



DUTIES OF WOMEN. 143 

let it be remembered, we are not saying there are no objections to 
the diffusion of knowledge among the female sex. We would not 
hazard such a proposition respecting anything ; but we are saying, 
that, upon the whole, it is the best method of employing time ; and 
that there are fewer objections to it than to any other method. 
There are, perhaps, fifty thousand females in Great Britain who 
are exempted by circumstances from all necessary labour: but 
every human being must do something with their existence ; and 
the pursuit of knowledge is, upon the whole, the most innocent, 
the most dignified, and the most useful method of filling up that 
idleness, of which there is always so large a portion in nations far 
advanced in civilization. Let any man reflect, too, upon the soli- 
tary situation in which women are placed — the ill-treatment to 
which they are sometimes exposed, and which they must endure 
in silence, and without the power of complaining — and he must 
feel convinced that the happiness of a woman will be materially 
increased in proportion as education has given to her the habit and 
the means of drawing her resources from herself. 

There are a few common phrases in circulation, respecting the 
duties of women, to which we wish to pay some degree of atten- 
tion, because they are rather inimical to those opinions which we 
have advanced on this subject. Indeed, independently of this, 
there is nothing which requires more vigilance than the current 
phrases of the day, of which there are always some resorted to in 
every dispute, and from the sovereign authority of which it is 
often vain to make any appeal. " The true theatre for a woman 
is the sick-chamber ;" — " Nothing so honourable to a woman as 
not to be spoken of at all." These two phrases, the delight of 
Noodledom, are grown into common-places upon the subject ; and 
are not unfrequently employed to extinguish that love of knowl- 
edge in women, which, in our humble opinion, it is of so much 
importance .to cherish. Nothing, certainly, is so ornamental and 
delightful in women as the benevolent affections ; but time cannot 
be filled up, and life employed, with high and impassioned virtues. 
Some of these feelings are of rare occurrence — all of short dura- 
tion — or nature would sink under tliem. A scene of distress and 
anguish is an occasion where the finest qualities of the female 
mind may be displayed; but it is a monstrous exaggeration to tell 
women that they are born only for scenes of distress and anguish. 



144 NOTOKIETY. 

Nurse father, mother, sister, and brother, if they want it ; it would 
be a violation of the plainest duties to neglect them. But, when 
we are talking of the common occupations of life, do not let us 
mistake the accidents for the occupations ; when we are arguing 
how the twenty-three hours of the day are to be filled up, it is idle 
to tell us of those feelings and agitations above the level of com- 
mon existence, which may employ the remaining hour. Com- 
passion, and every other virtue, are the great objects we all ought 
to have in view; but no man (and no woman) can fill up the 
twenty-four hours by acts of virtue. But one is a lawyer, and the 
other a ploughman, and the third a merchant ; and then, acts of 
goodness, and intervals of compassion and fine feeling, are scat- 
tered up and down the common occupations of life. We know 
women are to be compassionate ; but they cannot be compassionate 
from eight o'clock in the morning till twelve at night : and what 
are they to do in the interval ? This is the only question we have 
been putting all along, and is all that can be meant by literary 
education. 

Then, again, as to the notoriety which is incurred by literature. 
The cultivation of knowledge is a very distinct thing from its 
publication; nor does it follow that a woman is to become an 
author merely because she has talent enough for it. We do not 
wish a lady to write books — to defend and reply — to squabble 
about the tomb of Achilles, or the plain of Troy — any more than 
we wish her to dance at the opera, to play at a public concert, or 
to put pictures in the exhibition, because she has learned music, 
dancing, and drawing. The great use of her knowledge will be 
that it contributes to her private happiness. She may make it 
public : but it is not the principal object which the friends of female 
education have in view. Among men, the few who write bear no 
comparison to the many who read. We hear most of the former, 
indeed, because they are, in general, the most ostentatious part of 
literary men; but there are innumerable persons who, without 
ever laying themselves before the public, have made use of litera- 
ture to add to the strength of their understandings, and to improve 
the happiness of their lives. After all, it may be an evil for ladies 
to be telked of: but we really think those ladies who are talked 
of only as Mrs. Marcet, Mrs. Somerville, and Miss Martineau, are 



HAPPINESS AT STAKE. 145 

talked of, may bear their misfortunes with a very great degree of 
Christian patience. 

Their exemption from all the necessary business of life is one 
of the most powerful motives for the improvement of education in 
women. Lawyers and physicians have in their professions a con- 
stant motive to exertion ; if you neglect their education, they must, 
in a certain degree, educate themselves by their commerce with 
the world : they must learn caution, accuracy, and judgment, 
because they must incur responsibility. But if you neglect to 
educate the mind of a woman, by the speculative difficulties which 
occur in literature, it can never be educated at all : if you do not 
effectually rouse it by education, it must remain for ever languid. 
Uneducated men may escape intellectual degradation ; uneducated 
women cannot. They have nothing to do ; and if they come un- 
taught from the schools of education, they will never be instructed 
in the school of events. 

Women have not their livelihood to gain by knowledge ; and 
that is one motive for relaxing all those efforts which are made in 
the education of men. They certainly have not ; but they have 
happiness to gain, to which knowledge leads as probably as it does 
to profit; and that is a reason against mistaken indulgence. 
Besides, we conceive the labour and fatigue of accomplishments 
to be quite equal to the labour and fatigue of knowledge ; and 
that it takes quite as many years to be charming as it does to be 
learned. 

Another difference of the sexes is, that women are attended to, 
and men attend. All acts of courtesy and politeness originate 
from the one sex, and are received by the other. We can see no 
sort of reason, in this diversity of condition, for giving to women 
a trifling and insignificant education ; but we see in it a very pow- 
erful reason for strengthening their judgment, and inspiring them 
with the habit of employing time usefully. We admit many 
striking differences in the situation of the two sexes, and many 
striking differences of understanding, proceeding from the different 
circumstances in which they are placed : but there is not a single 
difference of this kind which does not afford a new argument for 
making the education of women better than it is. They have 
nothing serious to do ; is that a reason why they should be brought 

7 



146 SOLID ATTAINMENTS. 

up to do nothing but what is trifling ? They are exposed to 
greater dangers ; is that a reason why their faculties are to be pur- 
posely and industriously weakened ? They are to form the char- 
acters of future men ; is that a cause why their own characters are 
to be broken and frittered down as they now are ? In short, there 
is not a single trait in that diversity of circumstances, in which the 
two sexes are placed, that does not decidedly prove the magnitude 
of the error we commit in neglecting (as we do neglect) the edu- 
cation of women. 

If the objections against the better education of women could 
be overruled, one of the great advantages that would ensue would 
be the extinction of innumerable follies. A decided and prevailing 
taste for one or another mode of education there must be. A 
century past, it was for housewifery — now it is for accomplish- 
ments. The object now is, to make women artists — to give them 
an excellence in drawing, music, painting, and dancing — of which, 
persons who make these pursuits the occupation of their lives, and 
derive from them their subsistence, need not be ashamed. Now, 
one great evil of all this is, that it does not last. If the whole of life 
were an Olympic game — if we could go on feasting and dancing 
to the end — this might do; but it is in truth merely a provision 
for the little interval . between coming into life, and settling in it ; 
while it leaves a long and dreary expanse behind, devoid both of 
dignity and cheerfulness. ISTo mother, no woman who has passed 
over the few first years of life, sings, or dances, or draws, or plays 
upon musical instruments. These are merely means for displaying 
the grace and vivacity of youth, which every woman gives up, as 
she gives up the dress and manners of eighteen ; she has no wish 
to retain them ; or, if she has, she is driven out of them by diame- 
ter and derision. The system of female education, as it now 
stands, aims only at embellishing a few years of life, which are in 
themselves so full of grace and happiness, that they hardly want 
it ; and then leaves the rest of existence a miserable prey to idle 
insignificance. No woman of understanding and reflection can 
possibly conceive she is doing justice to her children by such kind 
of education. The object is, to give to children resources that 
will endure as long as life endures — habits that time will amelior- 
ate, not destroy — occupations that will render sickness tolerable, 
solitude pjeasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, and 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 147 

therefore death less terrible : and the compensation which is offered 
for the omission of all this, is a short-lived blaze — a little tem- 
porary effect, which has no other consequence than to deprive the 
remainder of life of all taste and relish. There may be women 
who have a taste for the fine arts, and who evince a decided talent 
for drawing, or for music. In that case, there can be no objection 
to the cultivation of these arts ; but the error is, to make such 
things the grand and universal object — to insist upon it that every 
woman is to sing, and draw, and dance — with nature, or against 
nature — to bind her apprentice to some accomplishment, and if 
she cannot succeed in oil or water-colours, to prefer gilding, var- 
nishing, burnishing, box-making, to real solid improvement in taste, 
knowledge, and understanding. 

A great deal is said in favour of the social nature of the fine 
arts. Music gives pleasure to others. Drawing is an art, the 
amusement of which does not centre in him who exercises it, but it 
is diffused among the rest of the world. This is true ; but there is 
nothing, after all, so social as a cultivated mind. We do not mean 
to speak slightingly of the fine arts, or to depreciate the good hu- 
mour with which they are sometimes exhibited ; but we appeal to 
any man, whether a little spirited and sensible conversation — 
displaying, modestly, useful acquirements — and evincing rational 
curiosity, is not well worth the highest exertions of musical or 
graphical skill. A woman of accomplishments may entertain those 
who have the pleasure of knowing her for half an hour with great 
brilliancy ; but a mind full of ideas, and with that elastic spring 
which the love of knowledge only can convey, is a perpetual 
source of exhilaration and amusement to all that come within its 
reach ; — not collecting its force into single and insulated achieve- 
ments, like the efforts made in the fine arts — but diffusing, equally 
over the whole of existence, a calm pleasure — better loved as it is 
longer felt — and suitable to every variety and every period of 
life. Therefore, instead of hanging the understanding of a woman 
upon walls, or hearing it vibrate upon strings — instead of seeing 
it in clouds, or hearing it in the wind, we would make it the first 
spring and ornament of society, by enriching it with attainments 
upon which alone such power depends. 

If the education of women were improved, the education of 
men would be improved also. Let any one consider (in order to 



148 FORMATION OP CHARACTER. 

bring the matter more home by an individual instance) of what im- 
mense importance to society it is, whether a nobleman of first-rate for- 
tune and distinction is well or ill brought up ; — what a taste and fash- 
ion he may inspire for private and for political vice ! — and what 
misery and mischief he may produce to the thousand human beings 
who are dependent on him ! A country contains no such curse 
within its bosom. Youth, wealth, high rank, and vice, form a 
combination which baffles all remonstrance and beats down all 
opposition. A man of high rank who combines these qualifica- 
tions for corruption, is almost the master of the manners of the 
age, and has the public happiness within his grasp. But the most 
beautiful possession which a country can have is a noble and rich 
man, who loves virtue and knowledge ; — who without being feeble 
or fanatical is pious — and who without being factious is firm and 
independent; — who, in his political life, is an equitable mediator 
between king and people ; and in his civil life, a firm promoter of 
all which can shed a lustre upon his country, or promote the peace 
and order of the world. But if these objects are of the importance 
which we attribute to them, the education of women must be 
important, as the formation of character for the first seven or eight 
years of life seems to depend almost entirely upon them. It is 
certainly in the power of a sensible and well-educated mother to 
inspire, within that period, such tastes and propensities as shall 
nearly decide the destiny of the future man ; and this is done, not 
only by the intentional exertions of the mother, but by the gradual 
and insensible imitation of the child ; for there is something ex- 
tremely contagious in greatness and rectitude of thinking, even at 
that age ; and the character of the mother with whom he passes his 
early infancy, is always an event of the utmost importance to the 
child. A merely accomplished woman cannot infuse her tastes 
into the minds of her sons ; and, if she could, nothing could be 
more unfortunate than her success. Besides, when her accom- 
plishments are given up, she has nothing left for it but to amuse 
herself in the best way she can ; and, becoming entirely frivolous, 
either declines altogether the fatigue of attending to her children, 
or, attending to them, has neither talents nor knowledge to succeed ; 
and, therefore, here is a plain and fair answer to those who ask 
so triumphantly, why should a woman dedicate herself to this 
branch of knowledge? or why should she be attached to such 



EXERCISE OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 149 

science ? — Because, by having gained information on these points, 
she may inspire her son with valuable tastes, which may abide by 
him through life, and carry him up to all the sublimities of knowledge ; 
because she cannot lay the foundation of a great character, if she 
is absorbed in frivolous amusements, nor inspire her child with 
noble desires, when a long course of trifling has destroyed the little 
talents which were left by a bad education. 

It is of great importance to a country, that there should be 
as many understandings as possible actively employed within it. 
Mankind are much happier for the discovery of barometers, ther- 
mometers, steam-engines, and all the innumerable inventions in the 
arts and sciences. We are every day and every hour reaping the 
benefit of such talent and ingenuity. The same observation is 
true of such works as those of Dryden, Pope, Milton, and Shake- 
speare. Mankind are much happier that such individuals have 
lived and written ; they add every day to the stock of public 
enjoyment — and perpetually gladden and embellish life. Now, 
the number of those who exercise their understandings to any good 
purpose, is exactly in proportion to those who exercise it at all ; 
but, as the matter stands at present, half the talent in the universe 
runs to waste, and is totally unprofitable. It would have been 
almost as well for the world, hitherto, that women, instead of pos- 
sessing the capacities they do at present, should have been born 
wholly destitute of wit, genius, and every other attribute of mind, 
of which men make so eminent a use : and the ideas of use and 
possession are so united together, that, because it has been the 
custom in almost all countries to give to women a different and 
a worse education than to men, the notion has obtained that they 
do not possess faculties which they do not cultivate. Just as, in 
breaking up a common, it is sometimes very difficult to make the 
poor believe it will carry corn, merely because they have been 
hitherto accustomed to see it produce nothing but weeds and grass 
— they very naturally mistake present condition for general na- 
ture. So completely have the talents of women been kept down, 
that there is scarcely a single work, either of reason or imagination, 
written by a woman, which is in general circulation either in the 
English, French, or Italian literature; — scarcely one that has 
crept even into the ranks of our minor poets. 

If the possession of excellent talents is not a conclusive reason 



150 PLEASURES OF CONVERSATION. 

why they should be improved, it at least amounts to a very strong 
presumption ; and, if it can be shown that women may be trained 
to reason and imagine as well as men, the strongest reasons are 
certainly necessary to show us why we should not avail ourselves 
of such rich gifts of nature ; and we have a right to call for a clear 
statement of those perils which make it necessary that such talents 
should be totally extinguished, or, at most, very partially drawn 
out. The burthen of proof does not lie with those who say, increase 
the quantity of talent in any country as much as possible — for 
such a proposition is in conformity with every man's feelings ; but 
it lies with those who say, take care to keep that understanding 
weak and trifling, which nature has made capable of becoming 
strong and powerful. The paradox is with them, not with us. In 
all human reasoning, knowledge must be taken for a good, till it 
can be shown to be an evil. But now, nature makes to us rich 
and magnificent presents ; and we say to her — You are too luxu- 
riant and munificent— we must keep you under, and prune you; 
' — we have talents enough in the other half of the creation ; — and, 
if you will not stupify and enfeeble the minds of women to our hands, 
we ourselves must expose them to a narcotic process, and educate 
away that fatal redundance with which the world is afflicted, and 
the order of sublunary things deranged. 

One of the greatest pleasures of life is conversation; — and the 
pleasures of conversation are of course enhanced by every increase 
of knowledge : not that we should meet together to talk of alkalies 
and angles, or to add to our stock of history and philology — 
though a little of these things is no bad ingredient in conversation ; 
but let the subject be what it may, there is always a prodigious 
difference between the conversation of those who have been well 
educated and of those who have not enjoyed this advantage. Edu- 
cation gives fecundity of thought, copiousness of illustration, quick- 
ness, vigour, fancy, words, images and illustrations — it decorates 
every common thing, and gives the power of trifling without being 
undignified and absurd. The subjects themselves may not be 
wanted, upon which the talents of an educated man have been ex- 
ercised ; but there is always a demand for those talents which his 
education has rendered strong and quick. Now, really, nothing 
can be further from our intention than to say anything rude and 
unpleasant ; but we must be excused for observing, that it is not 



PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. 151 

now a very common thing to be interested by the variety and ex- 
tent of female knowledge, but it is a very common thing to lament, 
that the finest faculties in the world have been confined to trifles 
utterly unworthy of their richness and their strength. 

The pursuit of knowledge is the most innocent and interesting 
occupation which can be given to the female sex ; nor can there 
be a better method of checking a spirit of dissipation than by dif- 
fusing a taste for literature. The true way to attack vice, is by 
setting up something else against it. Give to women, in early 
youth, something to acquire, of sufficient interest and importance 
to command the application of their mature faculties, and to excite 
their perseverance in future life; — teach them that happiness is 
to be derived from the acquisition of knowledge, as well as the 
gratification of vanity ; and you will raise up a much more formid- 
able barrier against dissipation than a host of invectives and ex- 
hortations can supply. 

It sometimes happens that an unfortunate man gets drunk with 
very bad wine — not to gratify his palate, but to forget his cares: 
he does not set any value on what he receives, but on account of 
what it excludes — it keeps out something worse than itself. Now, 
though it were denied that the acquisition of serious knowledge is 
of itself important to a woman, still it prevents a taste for silly and 
pernicious works of imagination ; it keeps away the horrid trash 
of novels ; and, in lieu of that eagerness for emotion and adven- 
ture which books of that sort inspire, promotes a calm and steady 
temperament of mind. 

A man who deserves such a piece of good fortune, may general- 
ly find an excellent companion for all vicissitudes of his life ; but 
it is not so easy to find a companion for his understanding, who 
has similar pursuits with himself, or who can comprehend the pleas- 
ure lie derives from them. We really can see no reason why it 
should not be otherwise; nor comprehend how the pleasures of 
domestic life can be promoted by diminishing the number of sub- 
jects in which persons who are to spend their lives together take 
a common interest. 

One of the most agreeable consequences of knowledge is the 
respect and importance which it communicates to old age. Men 
rise in character often as they increase in years; — they are vene- 
rable from what they have acquired, and pleasing from what they 



152 RESPECT IN AGE. 

can impart. If they outlive their faculties, the mere frame itself 
is respected for what it once contained ; but women (such is their 
unfortunate style of education) hazard everything upon one cast 
of the die ; — when youth is gone, all is gone. No human creature 
gives his admiration for nothing ; either the eye must be charmed, 
or the understanding gratified. A woman must talk wisely or look 
well. Every human being must put up with the coldest civility, 
who has neither the charms of youth nor the wisdom of age. 
Neither is there the slightest commiseration for decayed accomplish- 
ments ; — no man mourns over the fragments of a dancer, or drops 
a tear on the relics of musical skill. They are flowers destined to 
perish ; but the decay of great talents is always the subject of solemn 
pity ; and, even when their last memorial is over, their ruins and 
vestiges are regarded with pious affection. 

There is no connection between the ignorance in which women 
are kept, and the preservation of moral and religious principle ; 
and yet certainly there is, in the minds of some timid and respec- 
table persons, a vague, indefinite dread of knowledge, as if it were 
capable of producing these effects. It might almost be supposed, 
from the dread which the propagation of knowledge has excited, 
that there was some great secret which was to be kept in impene- 
trable obscurity — that all moral rules were a species of delusion 
and imposture, the detection of which, by the improvement of the 
understanding, would be attended with the most fatal consequences 
to all, and particularly to women. If we could possibly under- 
stand what these great secrets were, we might perhaps be disposed 
to concur in their preservation ; but believing that all the salutary 
rules which are imposed on women are the result of true wisdom, 
and productive of the greatest happiness, we can not understand 
how they are to become less sensible of this truth in proportion as 
their power of discovering truth in general is increased, and the 
habit of viewing questions with accuracy and comprehension es- 
tablished by education. There are men, indeed, who are always 
exclaiming against every species of power, because it is connected 
with danger : their dread of abuses is so much stronger than their 
admiration of uses, that they would cheerfully give up the use of 
fire, gunpowder, and printing, to be freed from robbers, incendia- 
ries, and libels. It is true, that every increase of knowledge may 
possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may in- 



SUMMING UP. 153 

crease the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power ; and its 
value depends on its application. But, trust to the natural love of 
good where there is no temptation to be bad — it operates nowhere 
more forcibly than in education. No man, whether he be tutor, 
guardian, or friend, ever contents himself with infusing the mere 
ability to acquire ; but giving the power, he gives with it a taste 
for the wise and rational exercise of that power ; so that an edu- 
cated person is not only one with stronger and better faculties than 
others, but with a more useful propensity — a disposition better 
cultivated — and associations of a higher and more important 
class. 

In short, and to recapitulate the main points upon which we 
have insisted : Why the disproportion in knowledge between the 
two sexes should be so great, when the inequality in natural talents 
is so small ; or why the understanding of women should be lavish- 
ed upon trifles, when nature has made it capable of better and 
higher things, we profess ourselves not able to understand. The 
affectation charged upon female knowledge is best cured by making 
that knowledge more general : and the economy devolved upon 
women is best secured by the ruin, disgrace, and inconvenience 
which proceed from neglecting it. For the care of children, 
nature has made a direct and powerful provision ; and the gentle- 
ness and elegance of women is the natural consequence of that de- 
sire to please, which is productive of the greatest part of civiliza- 
tion and refinement, and which rests upon a foundation too deep to 
be shaken by any such modifications in education as we have pro- 
posed. If you educate women to attend to dignified and important 
subjects, you are multiplying beyond measure the chances of 
human improvement, by preparing and medicating those early im- 
pressions, which always come from the mother ; and which, in a 
great majority of instances, are quite decisive of character and 
genius. Nor is it only in the business of education thai women 
would influence the destiny of men. If women knew more, men 
must learn more — for ignorance would then be shameful — and it 
would become the fashion to be instructed. The instruction of 
women improves the stock of national talents, and employs more 
minds for the instruction and amusement of the world; — it in- 
creases the pleasures of society, by multiplying the topics upon 
which the two sexes take a common interest ; and makes marriage 

7* 



154 SCHOOL TYRANNY. 

an intercourse of understanding as well as of affection, by giving 
dignity and importance to the female character. The education of 
women favours public morals ; it provides for every season of life, 
as well as for the brightest and the best ; and leaves a woman, 
when she is stricken by the hand of time, not as she now is, desti- 
tute of everything, and neglected by all ; but with the full power 
and the splendid attractions of knowledge — diffusing the elegant 
pleasures of polite literature, and receiving the just homage of 
learned and accomplished men. 



BOYISH HARDSHIPS AT SCHOOL.* 

We are convinced that those young people will turn out to be 
the best men, who have been guarded most effectually in their 
childhood, from every species of useless vexation ; and experienced, 
in the greatest degree, the blessings of a wise and rational indul- 
gence. But even if these effects upon future character are not 
produced, still, four or five years in childhood make a very con- 
siderable period of human existence ; and it is by no means a 
trifling consideration whether they are passed happily or unhap- 
pily. The wretchedness of school tyranny is trifling enough to a 
man who only contemplates it in ease of body and tranquillity of 
mind, through the medium of twenty intervening years ; but it is 
quite as real, and quite as acute while it lasts, as any of the suf- 
ferings of mature life : and the utility of these sufferings, or the 
price paid in compensation for them, should be clearly made out 
to a conscientious parent before he consents to expose his children 
to them. 



MADAME D'EPINAY. HER FRIENDSHIP WITH ROUSSEAU.f 

There used to be in Paris, under the ancient regime, a few 
women of brilliant talents, who violated all the common duties of 
life, and gave very pleasant little suppers. Among these supped 
and sinned Madame d'Epinay — the friend and companion of 
Rousseau, Diderot, Grimm, Holbach, and many other literary per- 

* Erom an article on Public Schools. Ed. Rev., August, 1810. 
t Memoires et Correspondence de Madame d'Epinay. 3 vols. 8vo.. Ed. 
Review, Dec, 1818, 



MADAME D'EPINAY. 155 

sons of distinction of that period. Her principal lover was Grimm ; 
with whom was deposited, written in feigned names, the history of 
her life. Grimm died — his secretary sold the history — the feigned 
names have been exchanged for the real ones — and her works 
now appear abridged in three volumes octavo. 

Madame d'Epinay, though far from an immaculate character, 
has something to say in palliation of her irregularities. Her hus- 
band behaved abominably ; and alienated, by a series of the most 
brutal injuries, an attachment which seems to have been very ar- 
dent and sincere, and which, with better treatment, would probably 
have been lasting. For, in all her aberrations, Mad. d'Epinay 
seems to have had a tendency to be constant. Though extremely 
young when separated from her husband, she indulged herself with 
but two lovers for the rest of her life; — to the first of whom she 
seems to have been perfectly faithful, till he left her at the end of 
ten or twelve years ; — and to Grimm, by whom he was succeeded, 
she appears to have given no rival till the day of her death. The 
account of the life she led, both with her husband and her lovers, 
brings upon the scene a great variety of French characters, and 
lays open very completely the interior of French life and manners. 
But there are some letters and passages which ought not to have 
been published ; which a sense of common decency and morality 
ought to have suppressed ; and which, we feel assured, would never 
have seen the light in this country. 

A French woman seems almost always to have wanted the fla- 
vour of prohibition, as a necessary condiment to human life. The 
provided husband was rejected, and the forbidden husband intro- 
duced in ambiguous light, through posterns and secret partitions. 
It was not the union to one man that was objected to — for they 
dedicated themselves with a constancy which the most household 
and parturient woman in England could not exceed; — but the 
thing wanted was the wrong man, the gentleman without the ring 
— the master unsworn to at the altar — the person unconsecrated 
by priests — 

" Oh ! let mc taste thee anexcised by kings." 
* * * * * * * 

The friendship of Madame d'Epinay with Rousseau proceeded 
to a great degree of intimacy. She. admired his genius, and provided 
him with hats and coats ; and, at last, was so (\\v deluded by his de- 



156 LOCAL MOEALS. 

clamations about the country, as to fit him up a little hermit cot- 
tage, where there were a great many birds, and a great many 
plants and flowers — and where Rousseau was, as might have been 
expected, supremely miserable. His friends from Paris did not 
come to see him. The postman, the butcher, and the baker, hate 
romantic scenery; duchesses and marchionesses were no longer 
found to scramble for him. Among the real inhabitants of the 
country, the reputation of reading and thinking is fatal to charac- 
ter ; and Jean Jacques cursed his own successful eloquence which 
had sent him from the suppers and flattery of Paris, to smell 
daffodils, watch sparrows, or project idle saliva into the passing 
stream. Very few men who have gratified, and are gratifying 
their vanity in a great metropolis, are qualified to quit it. Few 
have the plain sense to perceive that they must soon inevitably be 
forgotten — or the fortitude to bear it when they are. They repre- 
sent to themselves imaginary scenes of deploring friends and dis- 
pirited companies — but the ocean might as well regret the drops 
exhaled by the sunbeams. Life goes on ; and whether the absent 
have retired into a cottage or a grave, is much the same thing.— 
In London, as in law, de non apparentihus, et non existentibus 
eadem est ratio. 



LOCAL ENGLISH MORALS.* 

This is very well, considering that seventy years ago, we had 
scarcely a foot of land in India. But English morals are quite 
local. Under the meridian of Greenwich, and between the 50th 
and 58th degrees of latitude, we are an upright, humane, and just 
people. Between the 6th and 10th degrees of western longitude, 
we are tyrants and oppressors. On the other side of the Cape, we 
are ambitious and unprincipled conquerors: — just as the same 
animal is woolly in one country, hairy in another, and something 
between both in a third. 



A HINT TO TRAVELLERS-! 

A traveller who passes through countries little known, should 
tell us how such countries are cultivated — how they are governed 

* From a review of St. Heude's Voyage up the Persian Gulf. Ed, Re- 
view, July, 1819. 
t From the same. 



CONQUERORS. 157 

— what is the face of nature — what is the state of the useful arts 
— what is the degree of knowledge which exists there. Every 
reader will be glad to learn these things, or some of them : but 
few, we imagine, will care to know whether he had a lean horse at 
this stage, or a fat horse at another — whether his supper at any 
given village was milk without eggs, or eggs without milk. A. 
little gossip and a few adventures, are very well ; but a book of 
gossip and adventures, especially when related without wit or dis- 
cretion, had better not be. 



USE OF CONQUERORS.* 

Nothing in this world is created in vain : lions, tigers, conquer- 
ors, have their use. Ambitious monarchs, who are the curse of 
civilized nations, are the civilizers of savage people. With a num- 
ber of little independent hordes, civilization is impossible. They 
must have a common interest before there can be peace ; and be 
directed by one will, before there can be order. When mankind 
are prevented from daily quarrelling and fighting, they first begin 
to improve ; and all this, we are afraid, is only to be accomplished, 
in the first instance, by some great conqueror. We sympathize, 
therefore, with the victories of the King of Ashantee — and feel 
ourselves, for the first time, in love with military glory. The ex- 
Emperor of the French would, at Coomassie, Dogwumba, or Inta, 
be an eminent benefactor to the human race. 



NATURE AT BOTANY BAY.f 

Botany Bay is situated in a fine climate, rather Asiatic than 
European — with a great variety of temperature — but favourable, 
on the whole, to health and life. It, conjointly with Van Diemen's 
Land, produces coal in great abundance, fossil sail, slate, lime, 
plumbago, potter's clay; iron; white, yellow and brilliant topazes; 
alum and copper. These are all the important fossil productions 
which have been hitherto discovered; hut the epidermis of the 
country has hardly as yet been scratched; and it is most probable 

* From a review of Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee. By T. 
Edward Bowdich. Ed. Rev., Oct., 1819. 

t Art. " Botany Bay." Ed. Rev., July, 1819. 



158 BOTANY BAY. 

that the immense mountains which divide the eastern and western 
settlements, Bathurst and Sydney, must abound with every species 
of mineral wealth. The harbours are admirable ; and the whole 
world, perhaps, cannot produce two such as those of Port Jackson 
and Derwent. The former of these is land-locked for fourteen 
miles in length, and of the most irregular form ; its soundings 
are more than sufficient for the largest ships ; and all the navies 
of the world might ride in safety within it. In the harbour of 
Derwent there is a road-stead forty-eight miles in length, com- 
pletely land-locked; — varying in breadth from eight to two miles 
— in depth from thirty to four fathoms — and affording the best 
anchorage the whole way. 

The mean heat, during the three summer months, December, 
January, and February, is about 80° at noon. The heat which 
such a degree of the thermometer would seem to indicate, is con- 
siderably tempered by the sea-breeze, which blows with consider- 
able force from nine in the morning till seven in the evening. The 
three autumn months are March, April, and May, in which the 
thermometer varies from 55° at night to 75° at noon. The three 
winter months are June, July, and August. During this interval, 
the mornings and evenings are very chilly, and the nights exces- 
sively cold; hoar-frosts are frequent; ice, half an inch thick, is 
found twenty miles from the coast ; the mean temperature at day- 
light is from 40° to 45°, and at noon, from 55° to 60°. In the 
three months of spring, the thermometer varies from 60° to 70°. 
The climate to the westward of the mountains is colder. Heavy 
falls of snow take place during the winter ; the frosts are more se- 
vere, and the winters of longer duration. All the seasons are 
much more distinctly marked, and resemble much more those of 
this country. 

Such is the climate of Botany Bay ; and, in this remote part 
of the earth, Nature (having made horses, oxen, ducks, geese, oaks, 
elms, and all regular and useful productions for the rest of the 
world), seems determined to have a bit of play, and to amuse her- 
self as she pleases. Accordingly, she makes cherries with the 
stone on the outside ; and a monstrous animal, as tall as a grena- 
dier, with the head of a rabbit, a tail as big as a bed-post, hopping 
along at the rate of five hops to a mile, with three or four young 
kangaroos looking out of its false uterus to see what is passing. 



CLIMBING BOYS. 159 

Then comes a quadruped as big as a large cat, with the eyes, col- 
our and skin of a mole, and the bill and web-feet of a duck — puz- 
zling Dr. Shaw, and rendering the latter half of his life miserable, 
from his utter inability to determine whether it was a bird or a 
beast. Add to this a parrot, with the legs of a sea-gull ; a skate 
with the head of a shark ; and a bird of such monstrous dimen- 
sions, that a side bone of it will dine three real carnivorous En- 
glishmen; — together with many other productions that agitate Sir 
Joseph, and fill him with mingled emotions of distress and delight. 



CHIMNEY - SWEEPERS.* 

An excellent and well-arranged dinner is a most pleasing oc- 
currence, and a great triumph of civilized life. It is not only the 
descending morsel and the enveloping sauce — but the rank, wealth, 
wit and beauty, which surround the meats — the learned manage- 
ment of light and heat — the silent and rapid services of the at- 
tendants — the smiling and sedulous host, proffering gusts and 
relishes — the exotic bottles — the embossed plate — the pleasant 
remarks — the handsome dresses — the cunning artifices in fruit 
and farina ! The hour of dinner, in short, includes everything of 
sensual and intellectual gratification which a great nation glories in 
producing. 

In the midst of all this, who knows that the kitchen chimney 
caught fire half an hour before dinner! — and that a poor little 
wretch, of six or seven years old, was sent up in the midst of the 
flames to put it out ? We could not, previous to reading this evi- 
dence, have formed a conception of the miseries of these poor 
wretches, or that there should exist, in a civilized country, a class of 
human beings destined to such extreme and varied distress 

We have been thus particular in stating the case of the chim- 
ney-sweepers, and in founding it upon the basis of facts, that we 
may make an answer to those profligate persons who arc always 
ready to fling an air of ridicule upon the labours of humanity, 
because they are desirous that what they have not virtue to do 
themselves, should appear to be foolish and romantic when done 
by others. A still higher degree of depravity than this, is to want 
every sort of compassion for human misery, when it is accompanied 
* Ed. Rev., Oct., 1819. 



160 CASTLEREAGH. 

by filth, poverty and ignorance — to regulate humanity by the in- 
come tax, and to deem the bodily wretchedness and the dirty tears 
of the poor a fit subject for pleasantry and contempt. We should 
have been loath to believe that such deep-seated and disgusting 
immorality existed in these days ; but the notice of it is forced 
upon us. Nor must we pass over a set of marvellously weak gen- 
tlemen who discover democracy and revolution in every effort to 
improve the condition of the lower orders, and to take off a little 
of the load of misery from those points where it presses the hard- 
est. Such are the men into whose hearts Mrs. Fry has struck the 
deepest terror — who abhor Mr. Bentham and his penitentiary; 
Mr. Bennet and his hulks ; Sir James Mackintosh and his bloodless 
assizes; Mr. Tuke and his sweeping machines — and every other 
human being who is great and good enough to sacrifice his quiet 
to his love for his fellow-creatures. Certainly we admit that hu- 
manity is sometimes the veil of ambition or of faction ; but we 
have no doubt that there are a great many excellent persons to 
whom it is misery to see misery, and pleasure to lessen it ; and who, 
by calling the public attention to the worst cases, and by giving 
birth to judicious legislative enactments for their improvement, 
have made, and are making the world somewhat happier than they 
found it. Upon these principles we join hands with the friends of 
the chimney-sweepers, and most heartily wish for the diminution 
of their numbers and the limitation of their trade. 



CASTLEREAGH, CANNING, AND GRATTAN.* 

There are two eminent Irishmen now in the House of Com- 
mons, Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, who will subscribe to 
the justness of every syllable we have said upon this subject ; and 
who have it in their power, by making it the condition of their 
remaining in office, to liberate their native country and raise it to 
its just rank among the nations of the earth. Yet the court buys 
them over, year after year, by the pomp and perquisites of office, 
and year after year they come into the House of Commons, feeling 
deeply and describing powerfully, the injuries of five millions of 
their countrymen — and continue members of a government that 
inflicts those evils, under the pitiful delusion that it is not a cabinet 
question — as if the scratchings and quarrellings of kings and 
* The conclusion of an Article on Ireland. Ed. Rev., Nov., 1820. 



GRATTAN. 161 

queens could alone cement politicians together in indissoluble unity, 
while the fate and fortune of one third of the empire might be 
complimented away from one minister to another, without the 
smallest breach in their cabinet alliance. Politicians, at least 
honest politicians, should be very flexible and accommodating in 
little things, very rigid and inflexible in great things. And is this 
not a great thing ? Who has painted it in finer and more com- 
manding eloquence than Mr. Canning ? Who has taken a more 
sensible and statesmanlike view of our miserable and cruel policy 
than Lord Castlereagh ? You would think, to hear them, that the 
same planet could not contain them and the oppressors of their 
country — perhaps not the same solar system. Yet for money, 
claret and patronage, they lend their countenance, assistance, and 
friendship, to the ministers who are the stern and inflexible ene- 
mies to the emancipation of Ireland ! 

Thank God that all is not profligacy and corruption in the his- 
tory of that devoted people — and that the name of Irishman does 
not always carry with it the idea of the oppressor or the oppressed 
« — the plunderer or the plundered — the tyrant or the slave. Great 
men hallow a whole people and lift up all who live in their time. 
What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days 
of Grattan ? who has not turned to him for comfort, from the false 
friends and open enemies of Ireland ? who did not remember him 
in the days of its burnings, and was tings, and murders ? No 
government ever dismayed him — the world could not bribe him 
— he thought only of Ireland — lived for no other object — dedi- 
cated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage 
and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence. He was so 
born and so gifted, that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature 
and all the highest attainments of human genius, were within his 
reach ; but he thought the noblest occupation of a man was to 
make other men happy and free ; and in that straight line he went 
on for fifty years, without one side-look, without one yielding 
thought, without one motive in his heart which he might not have 
laid open to the view of God and num. lie is gone ! — but there 
is not a single day of his honest life of which every good Irishman 
would not be more proud, than of the whole political existence of 
his countrymen — the annual deserters and betrayers of their* 
native land. 



162 ANCESTORS AND CONTEMPORARIES. 

JOHN BULL'S CHARITY SUBSCRIPTIONS.* 

The English are a calm, reflecting people ; they will give time 
and money when they are convinced ; but they love dates, names, 
and certificates. In the midst of the most heart-rending narratives, 
Bull requires the day of the month, the year of our Lord, the 
name of the parish and the countersign of three or four respecta- 
ble householders. After these affecting circumstances, he can no 
longer hold out; but gives way to the kindness of his nature — 
puffs, blubbers, and subscribes. 



WISDOM OF OUR ANCESTORS.f 

Our Wise Ancestors — the Wisdom of our Ancestors — the Wis- 
dom of Ages — Venerable Antiquity — Wisdom of Old Times. — 
This mischievous and absurd fallacy springs from the grossest 
perversion of the meaning of words. Experience is certainly the 
mother of wisdom, and the old have, of course, a greater experi- 
ence than the young ; but the question is, who are the old ? and 
who are the young? Of individuals living at the same period, 
the oldest has, of course, the greatest experience; but among 
generations of men the reverse of this is true. Those who come 
first (our ancestors), are the young people, and have the least 
experience. We have added to their experience the experience 
of many centuries ; and, therefore, as far as experience goes, are 
wiser, and more capable of forming an opinion than they were. 
The real feeling should be, not can we be so presumptuous as to 
put our opinions in opposition to those of our ancestors ? but can 
such young, ignorant, inexperienced persons as our ancestors neces- 
sarily were, be expected to have understood a subject as well as 
those who have seen so much more, lived so much longer, and 
enjoyed the experience of so many centuries ? All this cant, then, 
about our ancestors is merely an abuse of words, by transferring 
phrases true of contemporary men to succeeding ages. Whereas 
(as we have before observed) of living men the oldest has, cceteris 
paribus, the most experience ; of generations, the oldest has, 

* Prisons. Ed. Rev., Feb., 1822. 

t From a Review of The Book of Fallacies : from Unfinished Papers of 
Jeremy Bentham. By a Friend. Ed. Rev., Aug., 1825. 



THE GOOD OLD TIMES- 163 

cceteris paribus, the least experience. Our ancestors, up to the 
Conquest, were children in arms ; chubby boys in the time of 
Edward the First ; striplings under Elizabeth ; men in the reign of 
Queen Anne ; and we only are the white-bearded, silver-headed 
ancients, who have treasured up, and are prepared to profit by, all 
the experience which human life can supply. We are not disputing 
with our ancestors the palm of talent, in which they may or may 
not be our superiors, but the palm of experience, in which it is 
utterly impossible they can be our superiors. And yet, whenever 
the chancellor comes forward to protect some abuse, or to oppose 
some plan which has the increase of human happiness for its 
object, his first appeal is always to the wisdom of our ancestors ; 
and he himself, and many noble lords who vote with him, are, to 
this hour, persuaded that all alterations and amendments on their 
devices are an unblushing controversy between youthful temerity 
and mature experience! — and so, in truth, they are — only that 
much-loved magistrate mistakes the young for the old and the old 
for the young — and is guilty of that very sin against experience 
which he attributes to the lovers of innovation. 

We cannot, of course, be supposed to maintain that our ances- 
tors wanted wisdom, or that they were necessarily mistaken in 
their institutions, because their means of information were more 
limited than ours. But we do confidently maintain, that when we 
find it expedient to change anything which our ancestors have 
enacted, we are the experienced persons, and not they. The 
quantity of talent is always varying in any great nation. To say 
that we are more or less able than our ancestors, is an assertion 
that requires to be explained. All the able men of all ages, who 
have ever lived in England, probably possessed, if taken alto- 
gether, more intellect than all the able men now in England can 
boast of. But if authority must be resorted to rather than reason, 
the question is, What was the wisdom of that single age which 
enacted the law, compared with the wisdom of the age which 
proposes to alter it? What arc the eminent men of one and the 
Other period? If you say that our ancestors were wiser than us, 
mention your date and year. \i' the splendour of names is equal, 
are the circumstances the same? It' the circumstances are the 
same, we have a superiority of experience, of which the difference 
between the two periods is the measure. It is necessary to insist 



164 noodle's oration. 

upon this ; for upon sacks of wool, and on benches forensic, sit 
grave men, and agricolous persons in the Commons, crying out, 
"Ancestors, Ancestors! hodie non! Saxons, Danes, save us! 
Fiddlefrig, help us ! Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us." Any cover 
for nonsense — any veil for trash — any pretext for repelling the 
innovations of conscience and of duty ! 



noodle's oration.* 

The whole of these fallacies may be gathered together in a 
little oration, which we will denominate the Noodle's Oration. 

" What would our ancestors say to this, sir ? How does this 
measure tally with their institutions ? How does it agree with their 
experience ? Are we to put the wisdom of yesterday in compe- 
tition with the wisdom of centuries ? {Hear, hear /) Is beardless 
youth to show no respect for the decisions of mature age ? {Loud 
cries of hear ! hear /) If this measure be right, would it have 
escaped the wisdom of those Saxon progenitors to whom we are 
indebted for so many of our best political institutions? Would 
the Dane have passed it over ? Would the Norman have rejected 
it ? Would such a notable discovery have been reserved for these 
modern and degenerate times ? Besides, sir, if the measure itself 
is good, I ask the honourable gentleman if tins is the time for 
carrying it into execution — whether, in fact, a more unfortunate 
period could have been selected than that which he has chosen ? 
If this were an ordinary measure, I should not oppose it with so 
much vehemence ; but, sir, it calls in question the wisdom of an 
irrevocable law — of a law passed at the memorable period of the 
Revolution. What right have we, sir, to break down this firm 
column, on which the great men of that age stamped a character 
of eternity? Are not all authorities against this measure, Pitt, 
Fox, Cicero, and the Attorney and Solicitor General ? The pro- 
position is new, sir ; it is the first time it was ever heard in this 
house. I am not prepared sir — this house is not prepared — to 
receive it. The measure implies a distrust of his majesty's gov- 
ernment; their disapproval is sufficient to warrant opposition. 
Precaution only is requisite where danger is apprehended. Here 
the high character of the individuals in question is a sufficient 
=*From the same. 



NOODLE ON REFORM. 165 

guarantee against any ground of alarm. Give not, then, your 
sanction to this measure ; for whatever be its character, if you do 
give your sanction to it, the same man by whom this is proposed, 
will propose to you others to which it will be impossible to give 
your consent. I care very little, sir, for the ostensible measure ; 
but what is there behind? What are the honourable gentleman's 
future schemes ? If we pass this bill, what fresh concessions may 
he not require ? What further degradation is he planning for his 
country ? Talk of evil and inconvenience, sir ! look to other coun- 
tries — study other aggregations and societies of men, and then see 
whether the laws of this country demand a remedy, or deserve a 
panegyric. Was the honourable gentleman (let me ask him) 
always of this way of thinking? Do I not remember when he 
was the advocate in this house of very opposite opinions ? I not 
only quarrel with his present sentiments, sir, but I declare very 
frankly I do not like the party with which he acts. If his own 
motives were as pure as possible, they cannot but suffer contami- 
nation from those with whom he is politically associated. This 
measure may be a boon to the constitution, but I will accept no 
favour to the constitution from such hands {Loud cries of hear ! 
hear I) I profess myself, sir, an honest and upright member of 
the British Parliament, and I am not afraid to profess myself an 
enemy to all change, and all innovation. I am satisfied with things 
as they are ; and it will be my pride and pleasure to hand down 
this country to my children as I received it from those who prece- 
ded me. The honourable gentleman pretends to justify the sever- 
ity with which he has attacked the noble lord who presides in the 
Court of Chancery. But I say such attacks are pregnant with 
mischief to government itself. Oppose ministers, you oppose 
government ; disgrace ministers, you disgrace government ; bring 
ministers into contempt, you bring government into contempt ; and 
anarchy and civil war are the consequences. Besides, sir, the 
measure is unnecessary. Nobody complains of disorder in that 
shape in which it is the aim of your measure to propose a remedy 
to it. The business is one of the greatest importance ; there is 
need of the greatest caution and circumspection. Do not let us be 
precipitate, sir ; it is impossible to foresee all consequences. Every- 
thing should be gradual ; the example of a neighbouring nation 
should fill us with alarm ! The honourable gentleman has taxed 



166 CHARLES WATERTON. 

me with illiberality, sir. I deny the charge. I hate innovation, 
but I love improvement. I am an enemy to the corruption of 
government, but I defend its influence. I dread reform, but I 
dread it only when it is intemperate. I consider the liberty of the 
press as the great palladium of the constitution ; but at the same 
time, I hold the licentiousness of the press in the greatest abhor- 
rence. Nobody is more conscious than I am of the splendid abil- 
ities of the honourable mover, but I tell him at once, his scheme 
is too good to be practicable. It savours of Utopia. It looks well 
in theory, but it won't do in practice. It will not do, I repeat, sir, 
in practice ; and so the advocates of the measure will find, if, un- 
fortunately, it should find its way through Parliament. ( Cheers.) 
The source of that corruption to which the honourable member 
alludes is in the minds of the people ; so rank and extensive is that 
corruption, that no political reform can have any effect in remov- 
ing it. Instead of reforming others — instead of reforming the 
state, the constitution, and everything that is most excellent, let 
each man reform himself! let him look at home, he will find there 
enough to do, without looking abroad, and aiming at what is out 
of his power. (Loud cheers.) And now, sir, as it is frequently 
the custom in this house to end with a quotation, and as the gen- 
tleman who preceded me in the debate has anticipated me in my 
favourite quotation of the 'Strong pull and the long pull,' I shall 
end with the memorable words of the assembled Barons — Nolu- 
mus leges Anglice mutari." 



MR. WATERTON AND HIS WANDERINGS.* 

Mr. Waterton is a Roman Catholic gentleman of Yorkshire, 
of good fortune, who, instead of passing his life at balls and assem- 
blies, has preferred living with Indians and monkeys in the forests 
of Guiana. He appears in early life to have been seized with an 
unconquerable aversion to Piccadilly, and to that train of meteo- 
rological questions and answers, which forms the great staple of po- 

=* Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, 
and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824; with Original In- 
structions for the perfect Preservation of Birds, &c, for Cabinets of Natural 
History. By Charles Waterton, Esq. London. Mawman. 4 to. 1825 
Ed. Rev., Feb., 1826. 



GUIANA. 167 

lite English conversation. From a dislike to the regular form of 
a journal, he throws his travels into detached pieces, which he, 
rather affectedly, calls Wanderings — and of which we shall pro- 
ceed to give some account. 

His first Wandering was in the year 1812, through the wilds of 
Demerara and Essequibo, a part of ci-devant Dutch Guiana, in 
South America. The sun exhausted him by day, the musquitoes 
bit him by night : but on went Mr. Charles Waterton ! 

The first thing which strikes us in this extraordinary chronicle, 
is the genuine zeal and inexhaustible delight with which all the 
barbarous countries he visits are described. He seems to love the 
forests, the tigers, and the apes ; — to be rejoiced that he is the 
only man there ; that he has left his species far away ; and is at 
last in the midst of his blessed baboons ! He writes with a con- 
siderable degree of force and vigour ; and contrives to infuse into 
his reader that admiration of the great works, and undisturbed 
scenes of nature, which animates his style, and has influenced his 
life and practice. There is something, too, to be highly respected 
and praised in the conduct of a country-gentleman, who, instead 
of exhausting life in the chase, has dedicated a considerable por- 
tion of it to the pursuit of knowledge. There are so many temp- 
tations to complete idleness in the life of a country-gentleman, so 
many examples of it, and so much loss to the community from it, 
that every exception from the practice is deserving of great praise. 
Some country-gentlemen must remain to do the business of their 
counties ; but, in general, there are many more than are wanted ; 
and, generally speaking also, they are a class who should be stim- 
ulated to greater exertions. Sir Joseph Banks, a squire of large 
fortune in Lincolnshire, might have given up his existence to 
double-barrelled guns and persecutions of poachers — and all the 
benefits derived from his wealth, industry, and personal exertion in 
the cause of science, would have been lost to the community. 

Mr. Waterton complains, that the trees of; Guiana arc not more 
than six yards in circumference — a magnitude in trees which it is 
not easy for a Scotch imagination to reach. Among these, pre- 
eminent in height rises the mora — upon whose lop branches, when 
naked by aire, or dried by accident, is perched the toucan, too hige 
for the gun of the fowler; — around this are the green heart, 
famous for hardness; the tough hackea ; the ducalabali, surpassing 



168 DEMERARA. 

mahogany ; the ebony and letter-wood, exceeding the most beauti- 
ful woods of the Old World ; the locust-tree, yielding copal ; aisi 
the hayawa and olou trees, furnishing sweet-smelling resin. Upon 
the top of the mora grows the fig-tree. The bush-rope joins tree 
and tree, so as to render the forest impervious, as, descending from 
on high, it takes root as soon as its extremity touches the ground, 
and appears like shrouds and stays supporting the mainmast of a 
line-of-battle ship. 

Demerara yields to no country in the world in her birds. The 
mud is flaming with the scarlet curlew. At sunset, the pelicans 
return from the sea to the courada trees. Among the flowers are 
the humming-birds. The columbine, gallinaceous, and passerine 
tribes people the fruit-trees. At the close of day, the vampires, or 
winged bats, suck the blood of the traveller, and cool him by the 
flap of their wings. Nor has nature forgotten to amuse herself 
here in the composition of snakes : — the camoudi has been killed 
from thirty to forty feet long ; he does not act by venom, but by 
size and convolution. The Spaniards affirm that he grows to the 
length of eighty feet, and that he will swallow a bull ; but Span- 
iards love the superlative. There is a whipsnake of a beautiful 
green. The labarri snake of a dirty brown, who kills you in a 
few minutes. Every lovely colour under heaven is lavished upon 
the counachouchi, the most venomous of reptiles, and known by 
name of the bush-master. Man and beast, says Mr. Waterton, fly 
before him, and allow him to pursue an undisputed path 

One of the strange and fanciful objects of Mr. Waterton's jour- 
ney was, to obtain a better knowledge of the composition and na- 
ture of the Wourali poison, the ingredient with which the Indians 
poison their arrows. In the wilds of Essequibo, far away from 
any European settlements, there is a tribe of Indians known by 
the name of Macoushi. The Wourali poison is used by all the 
South American savages, betwixt the Amazon and the Oroonoque ; 
but the Macoushi Indians manufacture it with the greatest skill, 
and of the greatest strength. A vine grows in the forest called 
Wourali ; and from this vine, together with a good deal of nonsense 
and absurdity, the poison is prepared. When a native of Macou- 
shia goes in quest of feathered game, he seldom carries his bow 
and arrows. It is the blow-pipe he then uses. The reed grows 
to an amazing length, as the part the Indians use is from 10 to 11 



THE WOURALI POISON. 169 

feet long, and no tapering can be perceived, one end being as thick 
as another ; nor is there the slightest appearance of a knot or joint. 
The end which is applied to the mouth is tied round with a small 
silk grass cord. The arrow is from nine to ten inches long ; it is 
made out of the leaf of a palm-tree, and pointed as 'sharp as a 
needle : about an inch of the pointed end is poisoned : the other 
end is burnt to make it still harder ; and wild cotton is put round 
it for an inch and a half. The quiver holds from 500 to 600 ar- 
rows, is from 12 to 14 inches long, and in shape like a dice-box. 
With a quiver of these poisoned arrows over his shoulder, and Ins 
blow-pipe in his hand, the Indian stalks into the forest in quest of 
his feathered game 

Being a Wourali poison fancier, Mr. Waterton has recorded 
several instances of the power of his favourite drug. A sloth 
poisoned by it went gently to sleep, and died ! a large ox, weigh- 
ing one thousand pounds, was shot with three arrows ; the poison 
took effect in four minutes, and in twenty-five minutes he was 
dead. The death seems to be very gentle ; and resembles more a 
quiet apoplexy, brought on by hearing a long story, than and 
other kind of death. If an Indian happen to be wounded with 
one of these arrows, he considers it as certain death. We have 
reason to congratulate ourselves, that our method of terminating 
disputes is by sword and pistol, and not by these medicated pins ; 
which, we presume, will become the weapons of gentlemen in the 
new republics of South America. 

The second journey of Mr. Waterton, in the year 1816, was to 
Pernambuco, in the southern hemisphere, on the coast of Brazil, 
and from thence he proceeds to Cayenne. His plan was to have 
ascended the Amazon from Para, and got into the Rio Negro, and 
from thence to have returned toward the source of the Essequibo, 
in order to examine the Crystal Mountains, and to look once more 
for Lake Parima, or the White Sea; but on arriving at Cayenne, 
he found that to beat up the Amazon would be long and tedious ; 
he left Cayenne, therefore in an American ship for Paramaribo, 
went through the interior to Coryntin, stopped a few days at New 
Amsterdam, and proceeded to Demerara. 

"Leave behind you," lie says to the traveller, "your high-seasoned dishes, 
your wines, and your delicacies , carry nothing but what is necessary for 
your own comfort, and the object in view, ?<\\<\ depend upon the skill of an 



170 THE CAMPANEKO. 

Indian, or your own, for fish and game. A sheet, about twelve feet long, 
ten wide, painted, and with loop-holes on each side, will be of great service : 
in a few minutes you can suspend it betwixt two trees in the shape of a roof. 
Under this, in your hammock, you may defy the pelting shower, and sleep 
heedless of the dews of night. A hat, a shirt, and a light pair of trowsers, 
will be all the raiment you require. Custom will soon teach you to tread 
lightly and barefoot on the little inequalities of the ground and show you 
how to pass on, unwounded amid the mantling briars." 

Snakes are certainly an annoyance ; but the snake, though high- 
spirited, is not quarrelsome; he considers his fangs to be given for 
defence, and not for annoyance, and never inflicts a wound but to 
defend existence. If you tread upon him, he puts you to death 
for your clumsiness, merely because he does not understand what 
your clumsiness means ; and certainly a snake, who feels fourteen 
or fifteen stone stamping upon his tail, has little time for reflection, 
and may be allowed to be poisonous and peevish. American tigers 
generally run away — from which several respectable gentlemen 
in Parliament inferred, in the American war, that American 
soldiers would run away also ! 

The description of the birds is very animated and interesting ; 
but how far does the gentle reader imagine the campanero may 
be heard, whose size is that of a jay? Perhaps 300 yards. Poor 
innocent, ignorant reader ! unconscious of what nature has done in 
the forests of Cayenne, and measuring the force of tropical intona- 
tion by the sounds of a Scotch duck ! The campanero may be 
heard three miles! — this single little bird being more powerful 
than the belfry of a cathedral, ringing for a new dean — just ap- 
pointed on account of shabby politics, small understanding, and 
good family ! 

" The fifth species is the celebrated campanero of the Spaniards, called 
dara by the Indians, and bell-bird by the English. He is about the size of 
the jay. His plumage is white as snow. On his forehead rises a spiral tube 
nearly three inches long. It is jet black, dotted all over with small white 
feathers. It has a communication with the palate, and when filled with air, 
looks like a spire; when empty, it becomes pendulous. His note is loud and 
clear, like the sound of a bell, and may be heard at the distance of three 
miles. In the midst of these extensive wilds, generally on the dried top of 
an aged mora, almost out of gun reach, you will see the campanero. No 
sound or song from any of the winged inhabitants of the forest, not even the 
clearly pronounced ' Whip-poor- Will/ from the goatsucker, causes such as- 
tonishment as the toll of the campanero. 

" With many of the feathered race he pays the common tribute of a morn- 



WHIP-POOR-WILL. 171 

ing and an evening song ; and even when the meridian sun has shut in silence 
the mouths of almost the whole of animated nature, the campanero still 
cheers the forest. You hear his toll, and then a pause for a minute, then 
another toll, and then a pause again, and then a toll, and again a pause." 

It is impossible to contradict a gentleman who has been in the 
forests of Cayenne ; but we are determined, as soon as a campa- 
nero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, 
and have the distance measured. The toucan has an enormous 
bill, makes a noise like a puppy-dog, and lays his eggs in hollow 
trees. How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature ! To 
what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of Cayenne, 
with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a puppy-dog, and 
laying eggs in hollow trees ? The toucans, to be sure, might 
retort, to what purpose were gentlemen in Bond street created ? 
To what purpose were certain foolish, prating members of Parlia- 
ment created — pestering the House of Commons with their igno- 
rance and folly, and impeding the business of the country ? There 
is no end of such questions. So we will not enter into the meta- 
physics of the toucan. The houtou ranks high in beauty ; his 
whole body is green, his wings and tail blue ; his crown is of black 
and blue ; he makes no nest, but rears his young in the sand. 

There is no end to the extraordinary noises of the forest of 
Cayenne. The woodpecker, in striking against the tree with his 
bill, makes a sound so loud, that Mr. Waterton says it reminds 
you more of a wood-cutter than a bird. While lying in your ham- 
mock, you hear the goatsucker lamenting like one in deep distress 
— a stranger would take it for a Weir murdered by Thurtell. 

" Suppose yourself in hopeless sorrow, begin with a high loud note, and 
pronounce, ( ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha/ each note lower and lower, till the last 
is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two betwixt every note, and you will 
have some idea of the moaning of the largest goatsucker in Demerara." 

One species of the goatsucker cries, " Who are you ? who are 
you?" Another exclaims, "Work away, work away." A third, 
"Willy come go, Willy come go." A fourth, " Whip poor Will, 
whip poor Will." It is very flattering to us that they should all 
Bpeak English! — though we cannot much commend the elegance 
of their selections. The Indians never destroy these birds, be- 
lieving them to be the servants of Jumbo, the African devil. 

Great travellers are xary fond of triumphing over civilized life; 
and Mr. Waterton does not omit the opportunity of remarking, 



172 SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 

that nobody ever stopped him in the forests of Cayenne to ask 
him for his license, or to inquire if he had a hundred a year, or 
to take away his gun, or to dispute the limits of a manor, or to 
threaten him with a tropical justice of the peace. We hope, 
however, that in this point we are on the eve of improvement. 
Mr. Peel, who is a man of high character and principles, may 
depend upon it that the time is come for his interference, and that 
it will be a loss of reputation to him not to interfere. If any one 
else can and will carry an alteration through Parliament, there is 
no occasion that the hand of government should appear ; but some 
hand must appear. The common people are becoming ferocious, 
and the perdricide criminals are more numerous than the violators 
of all the branches of the Decalogue. 

" The king of the vultures is very handsome, and seems to be the only 
bird which claims regal honours from a surrounding tribe. It is a fact beyond 
all dispute, that when the scent of carrion has drawn together hundreds 
of the common vultures, they all retire from the carcass as soon as the king 
of the vultures makes his appearance. When his majesty has satisfied the 
cravings of his royal stomach with the choicest bits from the most stinking 
and corrupted parts, he generally retires to a neighbouring tree, and then the 
common vultures return in crowds to gobble down his leavings. The In- 
dians, as well as the whites, have observed this ; for when one of them, who 
has learned a little English, sees the king, and wishes you to have a proper 
notion of the bird, he says, ' There is the governor of the carrion crows/ 

"Now, the Indians have never heard of a personage in Demerara higher 
than that of governor; and the colonists, through a common mistake, call 
the vultures carrion crows. Hence the Indian, in order to express the do- 
minion of this bird over the common vultures, tells you he is governor of the 
carrion crows. The Spaniards have also observed it, for, through all the 
Spanish Main, he is called Key de Zamuros, king of the vultures." 

This, we think, explains satisfactorily the origin of kingly gov- 
ernment. As men have " learnt from the dog the physic of the 
field," they may probably have learnt from the vulture those high 
lessons of policy upon which, in Europe, we suppose the whole 
happiness of society, and the very existence of the human race, 
to depend. 

Just before his third journey, Mr. Waterton takes leave of Sir 
Joseph Banks, and speaks of him with affectionate regret. " I 
saw," says Mr. W., " with sorrow, that death was going to rob us 
of him. We talked of stuffing quadrupeds ; I agreed that the lips 
and nose ought to be cut off, and stuffed with wax." This is the 
way great naturalists take an eternal farewell of each other! 



THE SLOTH. 173 

Upon stuffing animals, however, we have a word to say. Mr. 
Waterton has placed at the head of his book the picture of what 
he is pleased to consider a nondescript species of monkey. In this 
exhibition our author is surely abusing his stuffing talents, and 
laughing at the public. It is clearly the head of a master in chan- 
cery — whom we have often seen backing in the House of Com- 
mons after he has delivered his message. It is foolish thus to 
trifle with science and natural history. Mr. Waterton gives an 
interesting account of the sloth, an animal of which he appears to 
be fond, and whose habits he has studied with peculiar attention. 

" Some years ago I kept a sloth in my room for several months. I often 
took him out of the house and placed him upon the ground, in order to have 
an opportunity of observing his motions. If the ground were rough, he 
would pull himself forward, by means of his fore legs, at a pretty good pace ; 
and he invariably shaped his course toward the nearest tree. But if I put 
him upon a smooth and well-trodden part of the road, he appeared to be in 
trouble and distress : his favourite abode was the back of a chair ; and after 
getting all his legs in a line upon the topmost part of it, he would hang there 
for hours together, and often, with a low and inward cry, would seem to in- 
vite me to take notice of him." 

The sloth, in its wild state,, spends its life in trees, and never 
leaves them but from force or accident. The eagle to the sky, the 
mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree ; but what is most extra- 
ordinary, he lives not upon the branches, but under them. He 
moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended, and passes 
his life in suspense — like a young clergyman distantly related to a 
bishop. Strings of ants may be observed, says our good traveller, 
a mile long, each carrying in its mouth a green leaf the size of a 
sixpence ! he does not say whether this is a loyal procession, like 
Oak-apple Day, or for what purpose these leaves are carried ; but 
it appears, while they are carrying the leaves, that three sorts of 
ant-bears are busy in eating them. The habits of the largest of 
these three animals are curious, and to us new. We recommend 
the account to the attention of the reader. 

" He is chiefly found in the inmost recesses of the forest, and seems partial 
to the low and swampy parts near creeks, where the Trooly tree grows. 
There he goes up and down in quest of ants, of which there is never the 
least scarcity; so that he soon obtains a sufficient supply of food, with very 
little trouble. He can not travel fast; man is superior to him in speed. 
Without swiftness to enable him to escape from his enemies, without teeth, 
the possession of which would assist him in self defence, and without the 



174 THE VAMPIRE. 

power of burrowing in the ground, by which he might conceal himself from 
his pursuers, he still is capable of ranging through these wilds in perfect safe- 
ty, nor does he fear the fatal pressure of the serpent's fold, or the teeth of the 
famished jaguar. Nature has formed his fore-legs wonderfully thick, and 
strong, and muscular, and armed his feet with three tremendous sharp and 
crooked claws. Whenever he seizes an animal with these formidable weap- 
ons, he hugs it close to his body and keeps it there till it dies through pres- 
sure, or through want of food. Nor does the ant-bear, in the meantime, suf- 
fer much from loss of aliment, as it is a well-known fact, that he can go 
longer without food than perhaps any other animal, except the land tortoise. 
His skin is of a texture that perfectly resists the bite of a dog ; his hinder 
parts are protected by thick and shaggy hair, while his immense tail is large 
enough to cover his whole body. 

" The Indians have a- great dread of coming in contact with the ant-bear ; 
and, after disabling him in the chase, never think of approaching him till he 
be quite dead." 

The vampire measures about twenty-six inches from wing to 
wing. There are two species, large and small. The large suck 
men, and the smaller, birds. Mr. W. saw some fowls which had 
been sucked the night before, and they were scarcely able to walk. 

" Some years ago I went to the river Paumaron with a Scotch gentleman, 
by name Tarbet. We hung our hammocks in the thatched loft of a planter's 
house. Next morning I heard this gentleman muttering in his hammock, 
and now and then letting fall an imprecation or two, just about the time 
he ought to have been saying his morning prayers. ' What is the matter, 
sir 1 ?' said I, softly; 'is anything amiss?' — 'What's the matter 1 ?' answered 
he, surlily; 'why, the vampires have been sucking me to death/ As soon 
as there was light enough, I went to his hammock, and saw it much stained 
with blood. ' There/ said he, thrusting his foot out of the hammock, ' see 
how these infernal imps have been drawing my life's blood.' On examining 
his foot, I found the vampire had tapped his great toe : there was a wound 
somewhat less than that made by a leech ; the blood was still oozing from it ; 
I conjectured he might have lost from ten to twelve ounces of blood. Whilst 
examining it, I think I put him into a worse humour, by remarking, that a 
European surgeon would not have been so generous as to have blooded him 
without making a charge. He looked up in my face, but did not say a word : 
I saw he was of opinion that I had better have spared this piece of ill-timed 
levity." 

The story which follows this account is vulgar, unworthy of 
Mr. Waterton, and should have been omitted. 

Every animal has its enemies. The land-tortoise has two ene- 
mies, man and the boa-constrictor. The natural defence of the land- 
tortoise is to draw himself up in his shell, and to remain quiet. In 
this state, the tiger, however famished, can do nothing with him, 



INSECTS OP THE TROPICS. 175 

for the shell is too strong for the stroke of his paw. Man, how- 
ever, takes him home and roasts him — and the boa-constrictor 
swallows him whole, shell and all, and consumes him slowly in the 
interior, as the Court of Chancery does a great estate. 

The danger seems to be much less with snakes and wild beasts, 
if you conduct yourself like a gentleman, and are not abruptly in- 
trusive. If you will pass on gently, you may walk unhurt within 
a yard of the Labairi snake, who would put you to death if you 
rushed upon him. The taguan knocks you down with a blow of 
his paw, if suddenly interrupted, but will run away, if you will give 
him time to do so. In short, most animals look upon man as a 
very ugly customer ; and, unless sorely pressed for food, or from 
fear of their own safety, are not fond of attacking him. Mr. Wat- 
erton, though much given to sentiment, made a Labairi snake bite 
itself, but no bad consequences ensued — nor would any bad con- 
sequences ensue, if a court-martial were to order a sinful soldier 
to give himself a thousand lashes. It is barely possible that the 
snake had some faint idea of whom and what he was biting. 

Insects are the curse of tropical climates. The bete rouge lays 
the foundation of a tremendous ulcer. In a moment you are cov- 
ered with ticks. Chigoes bury themselves in your flesh, and hatch a 
large colony of young chigoes in a few hours. They will not live to- 
gether, but every chigoe sets up a separate ulcer, and has his own 
private portion of pus. Flies get entry into your mouth, into your 
eyes, into your nose ; you eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. 
Lizards, cockroaches, and snakes, get into the bed ; ants eat up 
the books ; scorpions sting you on the foot. Everything bites, 
stings, or bruises ; every second of your existence you are wound- 
ed by some piece of animal life that nobody has ever seen before, 
except Swammerdam and Meriam. An insect with eleven legs is 
swimming in your teacup, a nondescript with nine wings is strug- 
gling in the small beer, or a caterpillar with several dozen eyes in 
his belly is hastening over the bread and butter ! All nature is 
alive, and seems to be gathering all her entomological hosts to eat 
you up, as you are standing, out of your coat, waistcoat, and 
breeches. Such are the tropics. All this reconciles us to our 
dews, fogs, vapours, and <lrizzl<> — to our apothecaries rushing about 
with gargles and tinctures — to our old, British, constitutional 
coughs, sore throats, a\id swelled faces 



176 GRANBY. 

Now, what shall we say, after all, of Mr. Waterton ? That he 
has spent a great part of his life in wandering in the wild scenes 
he describes, and that he describes them with entertaining zeal and 
real feeling. His stories draw largely sometimes on our faith: 
but a man who lives in the woods of Cayenne must do many odd 
things, and see many odd things — things utterly unknown to the 
dwellers in Hackney and Highgate. We do not want to rein up 
Mr. TTaterton too tightly — because we are convinced he goes best 
with his head free. But a little less of apostrophe, and some faint 
suspicion of his own powers of humour, would improve this gentle- 
man's style. As it is, he has a considerable talent at describing. 
He abounds with good feeling ; and has written a very entertain- 
ing book, which hurries the reader out of his European parlour, 
into the heart of tropical forests, and gives, over the rules and the 
cultivation of the civilized parts of the earth, a momentary superi- 
ority to the freedom of the savage, and the wild beauties of nature. 
"We honestly recommend the book to our readers : it is well worth 
the perusal. 



G-RANBT.' 



There is nothing more amusing in the spectacles of the present 
day, than to see the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases of the House of 
Commons struck aghast by the useful science and wise novelties 
of Mr. Huskisson and the chancellor of the exchequer. Treason, 
Disaffection, Atheism, Republicanism, and Socinianism — the great 
guns in the Noodle's park of artillery, they cannot bring to 
bear upon these gentlemen. Even to charge with a regiment 
of ancestors, is not quite so efficacious as it used to be ; and all 
that remains, therefore, is to rail against Peter M'Culloch and 
Political Economy ! In the meantime, clay after clay, down goes 
one piece of nonsense or another. The most approved trash, 
and the most trusty clamours, are found to be utterly powerless. 
Two-penny taunts and trumpery truisms have lost their destructive 
omnipotence : and the exhausted commonplace -man, and the afflict- 
ed fool, moan over the ashes of Imbecility, and strew flowers on 
the urn of Ignorance ! General Elliot found the London tailors in a 

* Granby. A Novel in Three Volumes. London, Colburn, 1826. Ed. 
Rev., Feb.," 1826. 



A NOVEL. 177 

state of mutiny, and he raised from them a regiment of light cav- 
alry, which distinguished itself in a very striking manner at the 
battle of Minden. In humble imitation of this example, we shall 
avail ourselves of the present political disaffection and unsatisfac- 
tory idleness of many men of rank and consequence, to request 
their attention to the Novel of Granby — written, as we have heard, 
by a young gentleman of the name of Lister ;* and from which we 
have derived a considerable deal of pleasure and entertainment. 

The main question as to a novel is — did it amuse ? Were you 
surprised at dinner coming so soon ? did you mistake eleven for 
ten, and twelve for eleven ? were you too late to dress ? and did 
you sit up beyond the usual hour ? If a novel produces these 
effects, it is good; if it does not — story, language, love, scandal 
itself, cannot save it. It is only meant to please, and it must do 
that, or it does nothing. Now Granby seems to us to answer this 
test extremely well ; it produces unpunctuality, makes the reader 
too late for dinner, impatient of contradiction, and inattentive — 
even if a bishop is making an observation, or a gentleman lately 
from the Pyramids, or the Upper Cataracts, is let loose upon the 
drawing-room. The objection, indeed, to these compositions, when 
they are well done, is, that it is impossible to do anything, or per- 
form any human duty, while we are engaged in them. Who can 
read Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages, or extract the root of an impos- 
sible quantity, or draw up a bond, when he is in the middle of Mr. 
Trebeck and Lady Charlotte Duncan ? How can the boy's lesson 
be heard, about the Jove-nourished Achilles, or his six miserable 
verses upon Dido be corrected, when Henry Granby and Mr. 
Courtenay are both making love to Miss Jermyn ? Common life 
palls in the middle of these artificial scenes. All is emotion when 
the book is open — all dull, flat, and feeble, when it is shut. 

Granby, a young man of no profession, living with an old uncle 
in the country, falls in love with Miss Jermyn, and Miss Jermyn 
with him; but Sir Thomas and Lady Jermyn, as the young gen- 

* This is the gentleman who now keeps the keys of Life and Death, the 
Janitor of the world. — Author's Note. Thomas Henry Lister, 1801-1842, held 
the office of Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Besides 
Granby, Mr. Lister published Herbert Lacy, a Nbvelj Epicharis, an Histori- 
cal Tragedy, performed in 1829, at Drury Lane; the Life and Administration 
of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon, and other writings, lie was brother-in- 
law of Lord John Russell. 

8* 



178 POWER OF A NOVELIST. 

tleman is not rich, having discovered by long living in the world, 
and patient observation of its ways, that young people are com- 
monly Malthus-proof and have children, and that young and old 
must eat, very naturally do what they can to discourage the union. 
The young people, however, both go to town — meet at balls — 
flutter, blush, look and cannot speak — speak and cannot look — 
suspect, misinterpret, are sad and mad, peevish and jealous, fond 
and foolish ; but the passion, after all, seems less near to its ac- 
complishment at the end of the season than the beginning. The 
uncle of Granby, however, dies, and leaves to his nephew a state- 
ment, accompanied with the requisite proofs — that Mr. Tyrrel, the 
supposed son of Lord Malton, is illegitimate, and that he, Granby, 
is the heir to Lord Malton's fortune. The second volume is now 
far advanced, and it is time for Lord Malton to die. Accord- 
ingly Mr. Lister very judiciously despatches him ; Granby inherits 
the estate — his virtues (for what shows off virtue like land?) are 
discovered by the Jermyns — and they marry in the last act. 

Upon this slender story, the author has succeeded in making a 
very agreeable and interesting novel ; and he has succeeded, we 
think, chiefly, by the very easy and natural picture of manners, as 
they really exist among the upper classes ; by the description of 
new characters, judiciously drawn and faithfully preserved ; and 
by the introduction of many striking and well-managed incidents ; 
and we are particularly struck throughout the whole with the dis- 
cretion and good sense of the author. He is never nimious ; there 
is nothing in excess ; there is a good deal of fancy and a great deal 
of spirit at work, but a directing and superintending judgment 
rarely quits him 

Tremendous is the power of a novelist ! If four or five men 
are in a room, and show a disposition to break the peace, no human 
magistrate (not even Mr. Justice Bayley) could do more than 
bind them over to keep the peace, and commit them if they re- 
fused. But the writer of the novel stands with a pen in his hand, 
and can run any of them through the body — can knock down any 
one individual, and keep the others upon their legs ; or, like the 
last scene in the first tragedy written by a young man of genius, 
can put them all to death. Now, an author possessing such extra- 
ordinary privileges, should not have allowed Mr. Tyrrel to strike 
Granby. This is ill-managed ; particularly as Granby does not 



INNS. 179 

return the blow, or turn him out of the house. Nobody should 
suffer his hero to have a black eye, or to be pulled by the nose. 
The Iliad would never have come down to these times if Aga- 
memnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have 
trembled for the iEne„d, if any Tyrian nobleman had kicked the 
pious ^Eneas in the 4th book. -ZEneas may have deserved it ; but 
he could not have founded the Roman empire after so distressing 
an accident. 



PUBLIC-HOUSES AND DRINKING.* 

What the poor shall drink — how they shall drink it — in pint 
cups or quart mugs — hot or cold — in the morning or the evening 
— whether the Three Pigeons shall be shut up, and the Shoulder 
of Mutton be opened — whether the Black Horse shall continue to 
swing in the air — or the White Horse, with animated crest and 
tail, no longer portend spirits within : all these great questions 
depend upon little clumps of squires and parsons gathered together 
in alehouses in the month of September — so portentous to publi- 
cans and partridges, to sots and sportsmen, to guzzling and game. 

" I am by no means a friend to the multiplication of public- 
houses," says a plump perclricide gentleman in loose mud-coloured 
gaiters, bottle-green jacket and brass buttons. Perhaps not ; but 
you are a friend to the multiplication of inns. You are well aware, 
that in your journeys to Buxton, Harrowgate, and Bath, the com- 
petition of inns keeps down the price of your four post-horses, and 
secures for you and yours the most reverential awe, from Boots 
upward to the crafty proprietor himself of the house of enter- 
tainment. From what other cause the sudden and overwhelming 
tumult at the Dragon? — Why the agonizing cry of first inn! 
Why is cake and jelly pushed in at the window ? Why are four 
eyeless, footless, legless horses,, rapidly circumscribed by breeching 
and bearing-reins? Why are you whisked off, amid the smiles of 
sallow waiters, before the landlord has had time to communicate to 
you the sad state of turnips in the neighbourhood ?, Look now a 
little to the right as you proceed down the main street, and you 
will behold the sign of the Star and Garter. Make your bow to 

♦From an article on the "Licensing of Ale-Houses." — Ed. Rev. Sep., 1826, 



180 WINE-DRINKERS AND ALE-DRINKERS. 

the landlord, for to him you are indebted for the gratification of 
your wishes, and the activity of your movements. His waiters 
are as sallow, his vertebrae are as flexible — his first turns as 
prompt and decisive. Woe to the Dragon if he slumbers and 
sleeps ! Woe to the Star if it does not glitter ! Each publican 
keeps the other in a state of vigilant civility ; and the traveller 
rolls along to his journey's end, lolling on the cushion of com- 
petition ! Why not therefore extend the benefit of this principle 
to the poor villager or the needy traveller — which produces so 
many comforts to the landed and substantial Justice ? 

There are two alehouses in the village, the Red Horse and the 
Dun Cow. Is it common sense to suppose that these two publi- 
cans are not desirous of gaining customers from each other? — 
and that the means they take are not precisely the same as those 
of important inns — by procuring good articles, and retailing them 
with civility and attention ? We really do not mean to accuse 
English magistrates of ill nature, for in general there is a good 
deal of kindness and consideration among them ; but they do not 
drink ale, and are apt to forget the importance of ale to the com- 
mon people. When wine-drinkers regulate the liquor and comfort 
of ale-drinkers, it is much as if carnivorous animals should regu- 
late the food of graminivorous animals — as if a lion should cater 
for an ox, or a coach-horse order dinner for a leopard. There is 
no natural capacity or incitement to do the thing well — no power 
in the lion to distinguish between clover and cow-thistles — no 
disposition in the coach-horse to discriminate between the succu- 
lence of a young kid, and the distressing dryness of a superannua- 
ted cow. The want of sympathy is a source of inattention, and a 
cause of evil. 

The immense importance of a pint of ale to a common person 
should never be overlooked ; nor should a good-natured Justice 
forget that he is acting for Liiiputians, whose pains and pleasures 
lie in a very narrow compass, and are but too apt to be treated 
with neglect and contempt by their superiors. About ten or eleven 
o'clock in the morning, perhaps, the first faint, shadowy vision of 
a future pint of beer dawns on the fancy of the ploughman. Far, 
very far is it from being fully developed. Sometimes the idea is 
rejected, sometimes it is fostered. At one time he is almost fixed 
on the Red Horse ; but the blazing fire and sedulous kindness of 



THE DUN COW. 181 

the landlady of the Dun Cow shake him, and his soul labours ! 
Heavy is the ploughed land — dark, dreary, and wet the clay. 
His purpose is at last fixed for beer ! Threepence is put down for 
the vigour of ale, one jienny for the stupefaction of tobacco ! — and 
these are the joys and holidays of millions, the greatest pleasure 
and relaxation which it is in the power of fortune to bestow ; and 
these are the amusements and holidays which a wise and parental 
Legislature should not despise or hastily extinguish, but, on the 
contrary, protect with every regulation which prudence and mor- 
ality would in any degree permit. We must beg leave to go into 
the Dun Cow with the poor man ; and we beg our readers to come 
in for a moment with us. Hodge finds a very good fire, a very 
good-natured landlady, who has some obliging expressions for every- 
body, a clean bench, and some very good ale — and all this produ- 
ced by the competition with the opposite alehouse ; but for which, 
he must have put up with any treatment, and any refreshment the 
unopposed landlord might have chosen to place before him. Is 
Hodge not sensible that his landlady is obliging, and his ale good ? 
How can it be supposed that the common people have not the same 
distinctions and niceties in their homely pleasures as the upper 
classes have in their luxuries ? Why should they not have ? Why 
should they not be indulged in it? Why should they be debarred 
from all benefit of that principle of competition, which is the only 
method by which such advantages are secured, or can ever be 
secured, to any class of mankind? — the method to which the 
upper classes, wherever their own pleasures are concerned, always 
have recourse. The licensers of public-houses are so sensible of 
this, that, where there is only one inn, nothing is more common 
than to substitute, and make exertions to set up another, and this 
by gentlemen who are by no means friendly to the multiplication 

of alehouses 

Public-houses are not only the inns of the travelling poor, but 
they are the cellar.- and parlours of the stationary poor. A gen- 
tleman ha- his own public-house, Locked up in a square brick bin. 
London Particular — Chalier L802 — Carbonell L803 — Sir John's 
present of Hock <<t my marriage : bought at the Duke's sale — East 
j. ra — Lafitte — Noyau — Mareschino. Such are the 

doni' lurces of him who is to regulate the potations of the 

labourer. And away goes this subterraneous bacchanalian, greedy 



182 PRIVATE CELLARS AND PUBLIC-HOUSES. 

of the grape, with his feet wrapped up in flannel, to increase, on 
the licensing day, the difficulties of obtaining a pot of beer to the 
lower orders of mankind ! — and believes, as all men do when 
they are deciding upon other persons' pleasures, that he is actu- 
ated by the highest sense of duty, and the deepest consideration 

for the welfare of the lower orders.* 

In an advanced state of civilization there must be also an ad- 
vanced state of misery. In the low public-houses of great cities, 
very wretched and very criminal persons are huddled together in 
great masses. But is a man to die supperless in a ditch because 
he is not rich, or even because he is not innocent ? A pauper or 
a felon is not to be driven into despair, and turned into a wild 
beast. Such men must be ; and such men must eat and sleep ; and 
if laws are wise, and police vigilant, we do not conceive it to be any 
evil that the haunts of such men are known, and hi some degree 
subject to inspection. What is meant by respectable public-houses, 
are houses where all the customers are rich and opulent. But 
who will take in the refuse of mankind, if monopoly allows him 
to choose better customers ? There is no end to this mischievous 
meddling with the natural arrangements of society. It would be 
just as wise to set magistrates to digest for mankind, as to fix for 
them in what proportion any particular class of their wants shall 
be supplied. But there are excellent men who would place the 
moon under the care of magistrates, in order to improve travel- 

* In an article on Botany Bay, Ed. Rev., July, 1819, Sydney Smith has 
this parallel passage on the Consumption of Spirits : " There has been in all 
governments a great deal of absurd canting about the consumption of spirits. 
We believe the best plan is to let people drink what they like, and wear what 
they like ; to make no sumptuary laws either for the belly or the back. In 
the first place laws against rum and rum-water are made by men who change 
a wet coat for a dry one whenever they choose, and who do not often work 
up to their knees in mud and water ; and, in the next place, if this stimulus 
did all the mischief it is thought to do by the wise men of claret, its cheap- 
ness and plenty would rather lessen than increase the avidity with which it is 
at present sought for. Again, human life is subject to such manifold wretch- 
edness, that all nations have invented a something liquid and solid, to produce 
a brief oblivion. Poppies, barley, grasses, sugar, pepper, and a thousand 
other things, have been squeezed, pressed, pounded and purified to produce 
this temporary happiness. Noblemen and members of Parliament have large 
cellars full of sealed bottles, to enable them the better to endure the wretched- 
ness of life. The poor man seeks the same end by expending three half 
pence in gin; — but no moralist can endure the idea of gin." 

v 



GHOSTS. 183 

ling, and make things safe and comfortable. An enhancement of 
the evil is, that no reason is given for the rejection or adoption. 
The Magistrates have only to preserve the most impenetrable se- 
crecy — to say only No, or Yes, and the affair is at an end. No 
court can interfere, no superior authority question. Hunger and 
thirst, or wantonness and riot, are inflicted upon a parish or a dis- 
trict for a whole year, without the possibility of complaint, or the 
hope of redress. Their Worships were in the gout, and they re- 
fused. Their Worships were mellow, and they gave leave. God 
bless their Worships! — and then, what would happen if small 
public-houses were shut ? Would villany cease ? Are there no 
other means by which the bad could congregate ? Is there so fool- 
ish a person, either in or out of the Commission, as to believe that 
burglary and larceny would be put an end to, by the want of a 
place in which the plan for such deeds could be talked over and 
arranged ? 



NO-POPERY OUTCRY OF 1827.* 

Few men consider the historical view which will be taken of 
present events. The bubbles of last year ; the fishing for half- 
crowns in Vigo Bay ; the Milk Muffin and Crumpet Companies ; 
the Apple, Pear and Plum Associations ; the National Gooseberry 
and Current Company ; will all be remembered as instances of 
that partial madness to which society is occasionally exposed. 
What will be said of all the intolerable trash which is issued forth 
at public meetings of No Popery ? The follies of one century are 
scarcely credible in that which succeeds it. A grandmamma of 
1827 is as wise as a very wise man of 1727. If the world lasts 
till 1927, the grandmammas of that period will be far wiser than 
the tip-top No-Popery men of this day. That this childish non- 
sense will have got out of the drawing-room, there can be no 
doubt. It will most probably have passed through the steward's 
room — and butler's pantry, into the kitchen. This is the case 
with ghosts. They no longer loll on couches and sip tea; but are 
down on their knees scrubbing with the scullion — or stand sweat- 
ing, and basting with the cook. Mrs. Abigail turns up her nose 
at them, and the housekeeper declares for flesh and blood, and will 

have none of their company 

* Article " Catholics, " Ed. Rev., 1827. 



184 AMERICA. 

We conclude with, a few words of advice to the different oppo- 
nents of the Catholic Question. 

To the No-Popery fool. 

You are made use of by men who laugh at you, and despise 

you for your folly and ignorance ; and who, the moment it suits 

their purpose, will consent to emancipation of the Catholics, and 

leave you to roar and bellow No-Popery ! to vacancy and the moon. 

To the No- Popery rogue. 

A shameful and scandalous game, to sport with the serious in- 
terests of the country, in order to gain some increase of public 
power ! 

To the honest No-Popery people. 

We respect you very sincerely — but are astonished at your 
existence. 

To the base. 

Sweet children of turpitude, beware ! the old anti-popery peo- 
ple are fast perishing away. Take heed that you are not surprised 
by an emancipating king or an emancipating administration. Leave 
a locus pcenitentice ! — prepare a place for retreat — get ready your 
equivocations and denials. The dreadful day may yet come when 
liberality may lead to place and power. We understand these mat- 
ters here. It is the safest to be moderately base — to be flexible in 
shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, 
when anything is to be gained by virtue. 

To the Catholics. 
Wait. Do not add to your miseries by a mad and desperate 
rebellion. Persevere in civil exertions, and concede all you can 
concede. All great alterations in human affairs are produced by 
compromise. 



AMERICA. 

CHEAPNESS OF GOVERNMENT UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE CAUCUS.* 

One of the great advantages of the American government is its 
cheapness. The American king has about five thousand pounds 

* This and the following passages are from the article " America/' EcL 
Key., Dec, 1818. 



caucus. 185 

sterling per annum, the vice-king one thousand pounds sterling. 
They hire their Lord Liverpool at about a thousand per annum, 
and their Lord Sidmouth (a good bargain) at the same sum. Their 
Mr. Crokers are inexpressibly reasonable — somewhere about the 
price of an English doorkeeper, or bearer of a mace. Life, how- 
ever, seems to go on very well, in spite of these low salaries, and the 
purposes of government to be very fairly answered. Whatever 
may be the evils of universal suffrage in other countries, they 
have not yet been felt in America ; and one thing at least is estab- 
lished by her experience, that this institution is not necessarily 
followed by those tumults, the dread of which excites so much 
apprehension in this country. In the most democratic states, 
where the payment of direct taxes is the only qualification of a 
voter, the elections are carried on with the utmost tranquillity ; 
and the whole business, by taking votes in each parish or section, 
concluded all over the state in a single day. A great deal is said 
by Fearon* about Caucus, the cant word of the Americans for the 
committees and party meetings in which the business of the elec- 
tions is prepared — the influence of which he seems to consider as 
prejudicial. To us, however, it appears to be nothing more than 
the natural, fair, and unavoidable influence which talent, popularity 
and activity always must have upon such occasions. What other 
influence can the leading characters of the democratic party in 
Congress possibly possess ? Bribery is entirely out of the ques- 
tion — equally so is the influence of family and fortune. What, 
then, can they do, with their caucus or without it, but recommend ? 
And what charge is it against the American government to say, 
that those members of whom the people have the highest opinion 
meet together to consult whom they shall recommend for president, 
and that their recommendation is successful in their different 
states? Could any friend to good order wish oilier means to be 
employed, or other results to follow? No statesman ear, wish to 
exclude influence, but only bad influence ; not the influence of 
se and character, but the influence of money ana punch. 

* Henry Bradshaw Fearon, who came to America in 1817, to report on the 
prospect for emigrants from England. He published "A Narrative of a 

Journey of Five Thousand Miles through the Eastern and Western Slates of 
America. " 



186 ^OURT OF CHANCERY. 

THE JUDGE, THE TAILOR, AND THE BARBER. 

The Americans, we believe, are the first persons who have dis- 
carded the tailor in the administration of justice, and his auxiliary 
the barber — two persons of endless importance in the codes and 
pandects of Europe. A judge administers justice, without a calorific 
wig and particoloured gown,- in a coat and pantaloons. He is 
obeyed, however ; and life and property are not badly protected in 
the United States. We shall be denounced by the laureate as 
atheists and jacobins ; but we must say, that we have doubts 
whether one atom of useful influence is added to men in impor- 
tant situations by any colour, quantity, or configuration of cloth 
and hair. The true progress of refinement, we conceive, is to dis- 
card all the mountebank drapery of barbarous ages. One row of 
gold and fur falls off after another from the robe of power, and is 
picked up and worn by the parish beadle and the exhibitor of wild 
beasts. Meantime, the afflicted wiseacre mourns over equality of 
garment ; and wotteth not of two men, whose doublets have cost 
alike, how one shall command and the other obey. 



CHEAPNESS OF LAW. 

The dress of lawyers, however, is, at all events, of less impor- 
tance than their charges. Law is cheap in America : hi England, 
it is better, in a mere pecuniary point of view, to give up forty 
pounds than to contend for it in a court of common law. It costs 
that sum in England to win a cause ; and, in the court of equity, it is 
better to abandon five hundred or a thousand pounds, than to con- 
tend for it. ,We mean to say nothing disrespectful of the Chancel- 
lor — who is an upright judge, a very great lawyer, and zealous to 
do all he caj& but we believe the Court of Chancery to be in a 
state which imperiously requires legislative correction. We do not 
accuse it of a*y malversation, but of a complication, formality, en- 
tanglement, a$d delay, which the life, the wealth, and the patience 
of man cannot endure. How such a subject comes not to have 
been taken up in the House of Commons, we are wholly at a loss 
to conceive. We feel for climbing boys as much as anybody can 
do ; but what is a climbing boy in a chimney to a full-grown suitor 
in the -Master's office. And whence comes it, in the midst of ten 
thousand compassions and charities, that no Wilberforce, or Sister 



TAXES. 187 

Fry, has started up for the suitors in Chancery ? and why, in the 
name of these afflicted and attorney -worn people, are there united 
in their judge three or four offices, any one of which is sufficient 
to occupy the whole time of a very able and active man. 



LITERATURE. 

Literature the Americans have none — no native literature, 
we mean. It is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed ; ar.d 
may afford to live for half a century on his fame. There is, or 
was, a Mr. Dwight, who wrote some poems ; and his baptismal 
name was Timothy. There is also a small account of Virginia, by 
Jefferson, and an epic by Joel Barlow ; and some pieces of pleas- 
antry by Mr. Irving. But why should the Americans write 
books, when a six weeks' passage brings them, in their own tongue, 
our sense, science, and genius, in bales and hogsheads? Prairies, 
steamboats, grist-mills, are their natu ral objects for cen turies to tr 
com e. Th en 7 whe ji— thex havfi^goLto jthe^iacifi^-OGjean^^^ic f 
poems, pl a^ s. pleas u re s oLmemofrv, and -aU-4he_jeleiiant gratifi ca- 
tions of an ancient people, who have tamed the wild earth, and set 
down to amuse themselves. — This is the natural march of human 
affairs. 



MILITARY GLORY AND TAXES.* 

David Porter and Stephen Decatur are very brave men ; but 
they will prove an unspeakable misfortune to their country, if they 
inflame Jonathan into a love of naval glory, and inspire him with 
any other love of war than that which is founded upon a deter- 
mination not to submit to serious insult and injury. 

We can inform TnnntLrm ^hat noro ihf in evitable consequences 
fond of glory^^- Taxes upon every article to hick en- 
ters into the mouth, of covers the back, or is placed under the foot — 
taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, 
or taste — taxes upon warmth., light, and locomotion — taxes on 
every tiling on earth, and the 'waters under the earth — on everything 
that comes from abroad, or is grown at home — taxes on the raw 
material — taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the in- 
* This and the following passages arc from the article "America/' Ed. 
Rev., Jan., 1820. 



188 THE LAND OF JONATHAN. 

dustry of man — taxes on the sauce which pampers man* s appetite, 
and the drug that restores him to health — on the ermine which 
decorates the judge, and the rope ivhich hangs the criminal — on 
the poor maris salt, and, the rich maris spice — on the* brass nails 
of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride — at bed or hoard, couch- 
ant or levant, we must pay, — The school-boy whips his taxed top 
— the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, 
on a taxed road: — and the dying Englishman, pouring his medi- 
cine, which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon that has paid 15 per 
cent., flings himself bach upon his chintz bed. which has paid 22 
per cent., and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid 
a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to 
death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 
per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for bury- 
ing him in the chancel ; his virtues are handed down to posterity 
on taxed marble ; and he is then gathered to his fathers, to be taxed 
jrio morj/t In addition to all this, the habit of dealing with large 
sums will make the government avaricious and profuse ; and the 
system itself will infallibly generate the base vermin of spies and 
informers, and a still more pestilent race of political tools and re- 
tainers of the meanest and most odious description; — while the 
prodigious patronage which the collecting of this splendid revenue 
will throw into the hands of government, will invest it with so vast 
an influence, and hold out such means and temptations to corrup- 
tion, as all the virtue and public spirit, even of republicans, will 
be unable to resist. 



WHO READS AN AMERICAN BOOK?* 

- Such is the land of. Jonathan — arid thus has it been governed. 
In his honest endeavours to better his^situation, and in his manly 
purpose of resisting injury and insult we most cordially sympa- \ 
thize. We hope he will always continue to watch and suspect his 
government as he now does — remembering that it is the constant 

* This is the famous passage which has been the peg to hang many weari- 
some dissertations upon. Not needed to excite rapid American invention, it 
has become simply an historical landmark, from which to date extensive na- 
tional achievements. Its questions in politics, art, science, literature, are an 
index to American triumphs. 



RETROSPECT. 189 

tendency of those intrusted with power, to conceive that they en- 
joy it by their own merits, and for their own use, and not by dele- 
gation, and for the benefit of others. Thus far we are the friends 
and admirers of Jonathan. But he must not grow vain and am- 
bitious ; or allow himself to be dazzled by that galaxy of epithets 
by which his orators and newspaper scribblers endeavour to per- 
suade their supporters that they are the greatest, the most refined, 
the most enlightened and most moral people upon earth. The 
effect of this is unspeakably ludicrous on this side of the Atlantic 

— and, even on the other, we shall imagine, must be rather humili- 
ating to the reasonable part of the population. The Americans are 
a brave, industrious, and acute people ; but they have, hitherto, 
given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the 
heroic, either in their morality or character. They are but a re- 
cent offset, indeed, from England ; and should make it their chief 
boast, for many generations to come, that they are sprung from the 
same race with Bacon and Shakespeare and Newton. Considering 
their numbers, indeed, and the favourable circumstances in which 
they have been placed, they have yet done marvellously little to 
assert the honour of such a descent, or to show that their English 
blood has been exalted or refined by their republican training and 
institutions. Their Franklins and "Washingtons, and all the other 
sages and heroes of their Revolution, were born and bred subjects 
of the King of England — and not among the freest or most valued 
of his subjects. And since the period of their separation, a far 
greater proportion of their statesmen and artiste and political wri- 
ters have been foreigners than ever occurred before in the history 
of any civilized and educated people. During the thirty or forty 
years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for 
the Sciences, for the Arts, for Literature, or even for the states- 
man-like studies of Politics or Political Economy. Confining our- 
selves to our own country, and to the period that has elapsed since 
they had an independent existence, we would ask, where are their 
Foxes, their Burkes, their Sheridans, their Windhams, their Ilor- 
ners, their Wilberforces ? — Where their Arkwrights, their Watts, 
their Davys? — their Robertsons, Blairs, Smiths, Stewarts, Paleys, 
and Malthuses ? — their Porsons, Pairs, Burneys, or Blomfields? 
— their Scotts, Rogers's, Campbells, Borons, Moores, or Crabbes? 

— their Siddons's, Kembles, Keans, or O'Neils ? — their Wilkies, 



190 WHO READS AN AMERICAN BOOK? 

Lawrences, Chantrys? — or their parallels to the hundred other 
names that have spread themselves over the world from our little 
island in the course of the last thirty years, and blest or delighted 
mankind by their works, inventions, or examples ? In so far as 
we know, there is no such parallel to be produced from the whole 
annals of this self-adulating race. In the four quarters of the 
globe, who reads an American book ? or goes to an American play ? 
or looks at an American picture or statue ? What does the world 
yet owe to American physicians or surgeons ? What new sub- 
stances have their chemists discovered ? or what old ones have they 
analyzed ? What new constellations have been discovered by the 
telescopes of Americans ? What have they done in the mathemat- 
ics ? Who drinks out of American glasses ? or eats from American 
plates ? or wears American coats or gowns ? or sleeps in American 
blankets ? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments 
of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures 
may buy and sell and torture ? 

When these questions are fairly and favourably answered, their 
laudatory epithets may be allowed : but till that can be done, we 
would seriously advise them to keep clear of superlatives. 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.* 

There is a set of miserable persons in England, who are dread- 
fully afraid of America and everything American — whose great 
delight is to see that country ridiculed and vilified — and who 
appear to imagine that all the abuses which exist in this country 
acquire additional vigour and chance of duration from every book 
of travels which pours forth its venom and falsehood on the United 
States. We shall from time to time call the attention of the public 
to this subject, not from any party spirit, but because we love 
truth, and praise excellence wherever we find it ; and because 
we think the example of America will in many instances tend to 
open the eyes of Englishmen to their true interests. 

The economy of America is a great and important object for 
our imitation. The salary of Mr. Bagot, our late embassador, was, 
we believe, rather higher than that of the President of the United 

* This and the following passages are from article "America. " — Ed. Rev. 
July 1824. 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 191 

States. The vice-president receives rather less than the second 
clerk of the House of Commons ; and all salaries, civil and military, 
are upon the same scale ; and yet no country is better served than 
America ! Mr. Hume has at last persuaded the English people 
to look a little into their accounts, and to see how sadly they are 
plundered. But we ought to suspend our contempt for America, 
and consider whether we have not a very momentous lesson to 
learn from this wise and cautious people on the subject of economy. 

A lesson upon the importance of religious toleration, we are 
determined, it would seem, not to learn — either from America, 
or from any other quarter of the globe. The High Sheriff of 
New York, last year, was a Jew. * It was with the utmost difficulty 
that a bill was carried this year to allow the first Duke of England 
to carry a gold stick before the king — because he was a Catholic ! 
— and yet we think ourselves entitled to indulge in impertinent 
sneers at America — as if civilization did not depend more upon 
making wise laws for the promotion of human happiness, than in 
having good inns, and post-horses, and civil waiters. The circum- 
stances of the Dissenters' marriage bill are such as would excite 
the contempt of a Choctaw or Cherokee, if he could be brought to 
understand them. A certain class of Dissenters beg they may not 
be compelled to say that they marry in the name of the Trinity, 
because they do not believe in the Trinity. Never mind, say the 
corruptionists, you must go on saying you marry in the name of 
the Trinity, whether you believe in it or not. We know that such 
a protestation from you will be false : but, unless you make it, your 
wives shall be concubines, and your children illegitimate. Is it 
possible to conceive a greater or more useless tyranny than this ? 

In fact, it is hardly possible for any nation to show a greater 
superiority over another than the Americans, in this particular, 
have done over this country. They have fairly and completely, 
and probably for ever, extinguished that spirit of religious perse- 
cution which has been the employment and the curse of mankind 
for four or five centuries ; not only that persecution which im- 
prisons and scourges for religious opinions, but the tyranny of 
incapacitation, which, by disqualifying from civil offices, and cutting 

* The late M. M. Noah. It was objected to his election that a Jew would 
thus come to have the hanging of Christians. " Pretty Christians/' replied 
Noah, " to need hanging I" 



192 POLITICAL UNION. 

a man off from the lawful objects of ambition, endeavours to strangle 
religious freedom in silence, and to enjoy all the advantages, with- 
out the blood, and noise, and fire of persecution. What passes in 
the mind of one mean blockhead is the general history of all per- 
secution. " This man pretends to know better than me — I cannot 
subdue him by argument: but I will take care he shall never 
be mayor or alderman of the town in which he lives ; I will never 
consent to the repeal of the test act or to Catholic emancipation; 
I will teach the fellow to differ from me in religious opinions ! " 
So says the Episcopalian to the Catholic — and so the Catholic 
says to the Protestant. But the wisdom of America keeps them 
all down — secures to them all their just rights — gives to each 
of them their separate pews, and bells, and steeples — makes them 
all aldermen in their turns — and quietly extinguishes the fagots 
which each is preparing for the combustion of the other. Nor is 
this indifference to religious subjects in the American people, but 
pure civilization — a thorough comprehension of what is best cal- 
culated to secure the public happiness and peace — and a determi- 
nation that this happiness and peace shall not be violated by the 
insolence of any human being, in the garb, and under the sanction, 
of religion. In this particular, the Americans are at the head of 
all the nations of the world : and at the same time they are, espe- 
cially in the Eastern and Midland States, so far from being indiffer- 
ent on subjects of religion, that they may be most justly character- 
ized as a very religious people : but they are devout without being 
unjust (the great problem in religion) ; a higher proof of civili- 
zation than painted tea-cups, water-proof leather, or broadcloth at 
two guineas a yard. 



AMEEICAN UNION. 

Though America is a confederation of republics, they are in 
many cases much more amalgamated than the various parts of 
Great Britain. If a citizen of the United States can make a shoe, 
he is at liberty to make a shoe anywhere between Lake Ontario 
and New Orleans — he may sole on the Mississippi — heel on the 
Missouri — measure Mr. Birkbeck on the little Wabash, or take 
(which our best politicians do not find an easy matter) the length 
of Mr. Monroe's foot on the banks of the Potomac. But wo to the 



LYNCH-LAW. 193 

cobbler, who, having made Hessian boots for the Alderman of 
Newcastle, should venture to invest with these coriaceous integu- 
ments the leg of a liege subject at York. A yellow ant in a nest 
of red ants — a butcher's dog in a fox-kennel — a mouse in a bee- 
hive — all feel the effects of untimely intrusion; — but far prefer- 
able their fate to that of the misguided artisan, who, misled by six- 
penny histories of England, and conceiving his country to have 
been united at the Heptarchy, goes forth from his native town to 
stitch freely within the sea-girt limits of Albion. Him the mayor, 
him the alderman, him the recorder, him the quarter sessions 
would worry. Him the justices before trial would long to get into 
the treadmill ; and would much lament that, by a recent act, they 
could not do so, even with the intruding tradesman's consent ; but 
the moment he was tried, they would push him in with redoubled 
energy, and leave him to tread himself into a conviction of the 
barbarous institutions of his corporation-divided country. 



JUDGE LYNCH. 

In all new and distant settlements the forms of law must, of 
course, be very limited. No justice's warrant is current in the 
Dismal Swamp ; constables are exceedingly puzzled in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Mississippi ; and there is no treadmill, either before 
or after trial, on the Little Wabash. The consequence of this is, 
that the settlers take the law into their own hands, and give notice 
to a justice-proof delinquent to quit the territory — if this notice is 
disobeyed, they assemble and whip the culprit, and this failing, on 
the second visit they cut off his ears. In short, Captain Rock has 
his descendants in America. Mankind cannot live together with- 
out some approximation to justice ; and if the actual government 
will not govern well, or cannot govern well, is too wicked or too 
weak to do so — then men prefer Rock to anarchy. 



STJMMABY. 



America seems, on the whole, to be a country possessing vast 
advantages, and little inconveniences; (hey have a, cheap govern- 
ment, and bad roads; they pay no tithes, and have stage-coaches 
without springs. They have no poor laws and no monopolies — 

9 



194 SLAVERY. 

but their inns are inconvenient, and travellers are teased with 
questions. They have no collections in the line arts; but they 
have no lord-chancellor, and they can go to law without absolute 
ruin. They cannot make Latin verses, but they expend immense 
sums in the education of the poor. In all this the balance is pro- 
digiously in their favour : but then comes the great disgrace and 
danger of America — the existence of slavery, which if not timous- 
ly corrected, will one day entail (and ought to entail) a bloody 
servile war upon the Americans — which will separate America 
into slave states and states disclaiming slavery, and which remains 
at present as the foulest blot in the moral character of that people. 
A high-spirited nation, who cannot endure the slightest act of 
foreign aggression and who revolt at the very shadow of domestic 
tyranny — beat with cart- whips and bind with chains, and murder 
for the merest trifles, wretched human beings who are of a more 
dusky colour than themselves ; and have recently admitted into 
their Union a new State, with the express permission of ingraft- 
ing this atrocious wickedness into their constitution ! No one can 
admire the simple wisdom and manly firmness of the Americans 
more than we do, or more despise the pitiful propensity which 
exists among government-runners to vent their small spite at their 
character ; but on the subject of slavery, the conduct of America 
is, and has been, most reprehensible. It is impossible to speak 
of it with too much indignation and contempt ; but for it, we should 
look forward with unqualified pleasure to such a land of freedom, 
and such a magnificent spectacle of human happiness.* 

=* Smith previously expressed this sentiment in a letter to Jeffrey (Foston 
Nov. 23, 1818), who appears to have been suspicious of his friend's levity and 
satire in handling the Americans in the Review : — " My dear Jeffrey, I entirely 
agree with you respecting the Americans, and believe that I am to the full 
as much a Philo-Yankeeist as you are. I doubt if there ever was an instance 
of a new people conducting their affairs with so much wisdom, or if there 
ever was such an extensive scene of human happiness and prosperity. How- 
ever, you could not know that such were my opinions ; or if you did, you 
might imagine I should sacrifice them to effect ; and in either case your cau- 
tion was proper." 



FOOD OF THE MIND. 195 



SKETCHES OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 



SUPPLIES FOR THE MIND.* 



The first thing to be done in conducting the understanding is 
precisely the same as in conducting the body — to give it regular 
and copious supplies of food, to prevent that atrophy and maras- 
mus of mind, which comes on from giving it no new ideas. It is 
a mistake equally fatal to the memory, the imagination, the powers 
of reasoning, and to every faculty of the mind, to think too early 
that we can live upon our stock of understanding — that it is time 
to leave off business, and make use of the acquisitions we have 
already made, without troubling ourselves any further to add to 
them. It is no more possible for an idle man to keep together a 
certain stock of knowledge, than it is possible to keep together a 
stock of ice exposed to the meridian sun. Every day destroys a 
fact, a relation, or an inference ; and the only method of preserving 
the bulk and value of the pile is by constantly adding to it. 



LABOUR AND GENIUS. 

The prevailing idea with young people has been, the incom- 
patibility of labour and genius ; and, therefore, from the fear of 

* From the Lecture on the Conduct of the Understanding, Part I. This 
and the following selections embrace nearly the whole of the author's two 
lectures on the subject. They are here presented in paragraphs for conve- 
nience and for better effect ; the passages being, in fact, short essays on the 
separate topics. The sequence has been preserved, though little importance 
was attached to that by the lecturer who commences with the remark: "As 
the general object of my lecture will be to guard against the most ordinary 
and flagrant errors committed in the conduct of the understanding, and as I 
see no use in preserving any order in their enumeration, I shall put them 
down only in the order in which they happen to occur to me." 



196 NO EXCELLENCE WITHOUT LABOUE. 

being thought dull, they have thought it necessary to remain ignor- 
ant. I have seen, at school and at college, a great many young 
men completely destroyed by having been so tmfortunate as to 
produce an excellent copy of verses. Their genius being now 
established, all that remained for them to do was, to act up to the 
dignity of the character ; and, as this dignity consisted in reading 
nothing new, in forgetting what they had already read, and in 
pretending to be acquainted with all subjects, by a sort of off-hand 
exertion of talents, they soon collapsed into the most frivolous and 
insignificant of men. " "When we have had continually before us," 
says Sir Joshua Reynolds, " the great works of art, to impregnate 
our minds with kindred ideas, we are then, and not till then, fit to 
produce something of the same species. We behold all about us 
with the eyes of those penetrating observers whose works we con- 
template ; and our minds, accustomed to think the thoughts of the 
noblest and brightest intellects, are prepared for the discovery and 
selection of all that is great and noble in nature. The greatest 
natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock : he who resolves 
never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced from 
mere barrenness to the poorest of all imitations ; he will be obliged 
to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before repeated. 
When we know the subject designed by such men, it will never be 
difficult to guess what kind of work is to be produced." There is 
but one method, and that is hard labour ; and a man who will not 
pay that price for distinction, had better at once dedicate himself 
to the pursuits of the fox — or sport with the tangles of Nesera's 
hair — or talk of bullocks, and glory in the goad! There are 
many modes of being frivolous, and not a few of being useful ; 
there is but one mode of being intellectually great. 

It would be an extremely profitable thing to draw up a short 
and well-authenticated account of the habits of study of the most 
celebrated writers with whose style of literary industry we happen 
to be most acquainted. It would go very far to destroy the absurd 
and pernicious association of genius and idleness, by showing them 
that the greatest poets, orators, statesmen, and historians — men 
of the most brilliant and imposing talents — have actually laboured 
as hard as the makers of dictionaries and the arrangers of indexes ; 
and that the most obvious reason why they have been superior to 
other men is, that they have taken more pains than other men. 



THE BEST COMPANY. 197 

Gibbon was in his study every morning, winter and summer, at 
six o'clock ; Mr. Burke was the most laborious and indefatigable 
of human beings ; Leibnitz was never out of his library ; Pascal 
killed himself by study; Cicero narrowly escaped death by the 
same cause ; Milton was at his books with as much regularity as a 
merchant or an attorney — he had mastered all the knowledge of his 
time ; so had Homer. Raffaelle lived but thirty-seven years ; and 
in that short space carried the art so far beyond what it had before 
reached, that he appears to stand alone as a model to his successors. 
There are instances to the contrary ; but, generally speaking, the life 
of all truly great men has been a life of intense and incessant labour. 
They have commonly passed the first half of life in the gross dark- 
ness of indigent humility — overlooked, mistaken, contemned, by 
weaker men — thinking while others slept, reading while others 
rioted, feeling something within them that told them they should 
not always be kept down among the dregs of the world ; and then, 
when their time was come, and some little accident has given them 
their first occasion, they have burst out into the light and glory of 
public life, rich with the spoils of time, and mighty in all the la- 
bours and struggles of the mind. Then do the multitude cry out 
" a miracle of genius !" Yes, he is a miracle of genius, because 
he is a miracle of labour ; because, instead of trusting to the 
resources of his own single mind, he has ransacked a thousand 
minds ; because he makes use of the accumulated wisdom of ages, 
and takes as his point of departure the very last line and boundary 
to which science has advanced ; because it has ever been the 
object of his life to assist every intellectual gift of nature, however 
munificent, and however splendid, with every resource that art 
could suggest, and every attention diligence could bestow. 



AFFECTATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

If we are to read, it is a very important rule in the conduct 
of the understanding, that we should accustom the mind to keep 
the best company, by introducing it only to the best books. 
But there is a sort of vanity some men have, of talking of, and 
reading, obscure half-forgotten authors, because it passes as a 
matter of course, that he who quotes authors which are so little 
read, must be completely and thoroughly acquainted with those 



198 LITERARY FOPPERY. 

authors which are in every man's mouth. For instance, it is very 
common to quote Shakespeare ; but it makes a sort of stare to 
quote Massinger. I have very little credit for being well ac- 
quainted with Virgil ; but if I quote Silius Italicus, I may stand 
some chance of being reckoned a great scholar. In short, who- 
ever wishes to strike out of the great road, and to make a short 
cut to fame, let him neglect Homer, and Virgil, and Horace, and 
Ariosto, and Milton, and, instead of these, read and talk of Fracas- 
torius, Sannazarius, Lorenzini, Pastorini, and the thirty-six primary 
sonneteers of Bettinelli; let him neglect everything which the 
suffrage of ages has made venerable and grand, and dig out of 
their graves a set of decayed scribblers, whom the silent verdict 
of the public has fairly condemned to everlasting oblivion. If he 
complain of the injustice with which they have been treated, and 
call for a new trial with loud and importunate clamour, though I 
am afraid he will not make much progress in the estimation of men 
of sense, he will be sure to make some noise in the crowd, and to 
be dubbed a man of very curious and extraordinary erudition. 

Then there is another piece of foppery which is to be cautiously 
guarded against — the foppery of universality — of knowing all 
sciences and excelling in all arts — chemistry, mathematics, algebra, 
dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, High 
Dutch, natural philosophy, and enough Spanish to talk about Lope 
de Vega: in short, the modern precept of education very often is, 
" Take the Admirable Crichton for your model ; I would have you 
ignorant of nothing!" Now my advice, on the contrary, is, to 
have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in 
order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything. I 
would exact of a young man a pledge that he would never read 
Lope de Vega ; he should pawn to me his honour to abstain from 
Bettinelli, and his thirty-five original sonneteers ; and I would 
exact from him the most rigid securities that I was never to hear 
anything about that race of penny poets who lived in the reigns 
of Cosmo and Lorenzo di Medici. 

I know a gentleman of the law who has a thorough knowledge 
of fortifications, and whose acquaintance with bastions, and coun- 
terscarps, and parallels, is perfectly astonishing. How impossible 
it is for any man not professionally engaged in such pursuits to 
evince a thorough acquaintance with them, without lowering him- 



LOYE OF TRUTH. 199 

self in the estimation of every man of understanding who hears 
him ! How thoroughly aware must all such men be, that the time 
dedicated to such idle knowledge has been lost to the perfection 
of those mental habits, any one of which is better than the most 

enormous load of ill-arranged facts ! 

We do not want readers, for the number of readers seems to be 
very much upon the increase, and mere readers are very often the 
most idle of human beings. There is a sort of feeling of getting 
through a book — of getting enough out of it, perhaps, for the 
purpose of conversation — which is the great cause of this imper- 
fect reading, and the forgetfulness which is the consequence of it : 
whereas the ambition of a man of parts should be, not to know 
books, but things ; not to show other men that he has read Locke, 
and Montesquieu, and Beccaria, and Dumont, but to show them 
that he knows the subjects on which Locke and Beccaria and 
Dumont have written. It is no more necessary that a man should 
remember the different dinners and suppers which have made him 
healthy, than the different books which have made him wise. Let 
us see the result of good food in a strong body, and the result of 
great reading in a full and powerful mind. 



ATTACHMENT TO TRUTH. 

A sincere attachment to truth, moral and scientific, is a habit 
which cures a thousand little infirmities of mind, and is as honour- 
able to a man who possesses it, in point of character, as it is profit- 
able in point of improvement. There is nothing more beautiful in 
science than to hear any man candidly owning his ignorance. It 
is so little the habit of men who cultivate knowledge to do so — they 
so often have recourse to subterfuge, nonsense, or hypothesis, rather 
than to a plain, manly declaration, either that they themselves do 
not understand the subject, or that the subject is not understood- — 
that it is really quite refreshing to witness such instances of philo- 
sophical candour, and it creates an immediate prepossession in fa- 
vour of the person in whom it is observed. 



ABUSE OF WORDS. 

Next to this we have the abuse of words, and the fallacy of as- 
sociations ; compared with which all other modes of misconducting 



200 USE OF WOBDS. 

the understanding are insignificant and trivial. What do you mean 
by what you say ? Are you prepared to give a clear account of 
words which you use so positively, and by the help of which you 
form opinions that you seem resolved to maintain at all hazards ? 
Perhaps I should astonish many persons by putting to them such 
sort of questions : — Do you know what is meant by the word 
nature? Have you definite notions of justice? How do you 
explain the word chance ? What is virtue ? Men are every day 
framing the rashest propositions on such sort of subjects, and pre- 
pared to kill and to die in their defence. They never, for a single 
instant, doubt of the meaning of that, which was embarrassing to 
Locke, and in which Leibnitz and Descartes were never able to 
agree. Ten thousand people have been burned before now, or 
hanged, for one proposition. The proposition had no meaning. 
Looked into and examined in these days, it is absolute nonsense. 
A man quits his country in disgust at some supposed violation of 
its liberties, sells his estates, and settles in America. Twenty 
years afterward, it occurs to him, that he had never reflected upon 
the meaning of the word ; that he has packed up his goods and 
changed his country for a sound. 

Fortitude, justice, and candour, are very necessary instruments 
of happiness ; but they require time and exertion. The instru- 
ments I am now proposing to you you must not despise — gram- 
mar j definition, and interpretation — instruments which overturn 
the horrible tyranny of adjectives and substantives, and free the 
mind from the chains of that logocracy in which it is so frequently 
enslaved. Now have the goodness to observe what I mean. If 
you choose to quarrel with your eldest son, do it ; if you are de- 
termined to be disgusted with the world, and to go and five in 
Westmoreland, do so ; if you are resolved to quit your country, 
and settle in America, go! — only, when you have settled the 
reasons upon which you take one or the other of these steps, have 
the goodness to examine whether the words in which those reasons 
are contained have really any distinct meaning ; and if you find 
they have not, embrace your first-born, forget America, unloose 
your packages, and remain where you are ! 

There are men who suffer certain barren generalities to get the 
better of their understandings, by which they try all their opinions, 
and make them their perpetual standards of right and wrong : as 



TIMIDITY. 201 

thus — Let us beware of novelty ; The excesses of the people are 
always to be feared: or these contrary maxims — that there is a 
natural tendency in all governments to encroach upon the liberties 
of the people ; or that everything modern is probably an improve- 
ment of antiquity. Now what can the use be of sawing about a 
set of maxims to which there are a complete set of antagonist 
maxims ? For of what use is it to tell me that governors have a 
tendency to encroach upon the liberties of the people ? and is that 
a reason why you should throw yourself systematically in opposi- 
tion to the government ? "What you say is very true ; what you 
do is very foolish. For is there not another maxim quite as true, 
that the excesses of the people are to be guarded against ? and 
does not one evil a priori require your attention as well as another ? 
The business is, to determine, at any one particular period of af- 
fairs, which is in danger of being weakened, and to act according- 
ly, like an honest and courageous man ; not to lie like a dead 
weight at one end of the beam, without the smallest recollection 
there is any other, and that the equilibrium will be violated alike 
whichever extreme shall preponderate. In the same manner, a 
thing is not good because it is new, or good because it is old ; — 
there is no end of retorting such equally true principles : but it is 
good because it is fit for the purpose for which it was intended, and 
bad because it is not. 



COURAGE IN THE USE OF TALENT. 

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of 
a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of 
obscure men who have only remained obscure because their timid- 
ity has prevented them from making a first effort ; and who, if 
they could only have been induced to begin, would in all proba- 
bility have gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, 
that in order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must 
not stand shivering on the bank, and thinking of the cold and the 
danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as wo can. It 
will not do to be perpetually calculating risk-, and adjusting nice 
chances: it did all very well before the Flood, when a man could 
consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and 
fifty years, and then live to see its success for six or seven centu- 

9* 



202 FASTIDIOUSNESS. 

ries afterward ; but at present a man waits, and doubts, and hesi- 
tates, and consults his brother, and his uncle, and his first cousins, 
and his particular friends, till one fine day he finds that he is sixty- 
five years of age — that he has lost so much time in consulting first 
cousins and particular friends, that he has no more time left to 
follow their advice. There is such little time for over-squeamish- 
ness at present, the opportunity so easily slips away, the very 
period of life at which a man chooses to venture, if ever, is so con- 
fined, that it is no bad rule to preach up the necessity, in such 
instances, of a little violence clone to the feelings, and of efforts 
made in defiance of strict and sober calculation. 

With respect to that fastidiousness which disturbs the right con- 
duct of the understanding, it must be observed that there are two 
modes of judging of anything : one, by the test of what has actu- 
ally been done in the same way before ; the other, by what we can 
conceive may be clone in that way. Now this latter method of 
mere imaginary excellence can hardly be a just criterion, because 
it may be in fact impossible to reduce to practice what it is per- 
fectly easy to conceive : no man, before he has tried, can tell how 
difficult it is to manage prejudice, jealousy, and delicacy, and to 
overcome all that friction which the world opposes to speculation. 
Therefore, the fair practical rule seems to be, to compare any ex- 
ertion, by all similar exertions which have preceded it, and to al- 
low merit to any one who has improved, or, at least, who has not 
deteriorated the standard of excellence, in his own department of 
knowledge. Fastidious men are always judging by the other 
standard ; and, as the rest of the understanding cannot fill up in a 
century what the imagination can sketch out in a moment, they 
are always in a state of perpetual disappointment, and their con- 
versation one uniform tenor of blame. At the same time that I say 
this, I beg leave to lift up both my hands against that pernicious 
facility of temper, in the estimation of which everything is charming 
and delightful. Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know 
any one more important than that of not praising where praise is 
not due. Reputation is one of the prizes for which men contend : 
" it is," as Mr. Burke calls it, " the cheap defence and ornament of 
nations, and the nurse of manly exertions ;" it produces more la- 
bour and more talent than twice the wealth of a country could ever 
rear up. It is the coin of genius ; and it is the imperious duty of 



ARGUMENT. 203 

every man to bestow it with the most scrupulous justice and the 
wisest economy. 



HABIT OF DISCUSSION. 

I am about to recommend a practice in the conduct of the 
understanding which I dare say will be strongly objected to, by 
many men of the world who may overhear it, and that is, the 
practice of arguing, or, if that be a word in bad repute, of dis- 
cussing. But then I have many limitations to add to such recom- 
mendation. It is as unfair to compel a man to discuss with you, 
who can not play the game, or does not like it, as it would be to 
compel a person to play at chess with you under similar circum- 
stances : neither is such a sort of exercise of the mind suitable to 
the rapidity and equal division of general conversation. Such sort 
of practices are, of course, as ill-bred and as absurd as it would be 
to pull out a grammar and dictionary in a general society, and to 
prosecute the study of a language. But when two men meet 
together who love truth, and discuss any difficult point with good 
nature and a respect for each other's understandings, it always 
imparts a high degree of steadiness and certainty to our know- 
ledge ; or, what is nearly of equal value, and certainly of greater 
difficulty, it convinces us of our ignorance. It is an exercise 
grossly abused by those who have recourse to it, and is very apt 
to degenerate into a habit of perpetual contradiction, which is the 
most tiresome and most disgusting in all' the catalogue of imbecili- 
ties. It is an exercise which timid men dread — from which ir- 
ritable men ought to abstain ; but which, in my humble opinion, 
advances a man, who is calm enough for it, and strong enough for 
it, far beyond any other method of employing the mind. In<: 
a promptitude to discuss, is so far a proof of a sound mind, that, 
whenever we feel pain and alarm at our opinions being called in 
question, it is almost a certain sign, that they have been taken up 
without examination, or that the reasons which once determined 
our judgment have vanished away. 

1 direct these observations only to those who are capable of 
discussing; for there are many avIio have not the quickness and 
the presence of mind necessary for it, and who, in consequence, 
must be compelled to yield their opinions to the last speaker. 



204 USE OF OTHEES. 

And there is no question, that it is far preferable to remain under 
the influence of moderate errors, than to be bandied about for the 
whole of life from one opinion to another, at the pleasure, and for 
the sport of superior intelligence. 

But other men's understandings are to be made use of, in the 
conduct of your own, in many other methods than in that of dis- 
cussion. Lord Bacon says, that to enter into the kingdom of know- 
ledge, we must put on the spirit of little children ; and if he means 
that we are to submit to be taught by whoever can, or will teach 
us, it is a habit of mind which leads to very rapid improvement ; 
because a person who possesses it is always putting himself in a 
train to correct his prejudices, and dissolve his unphilosophical as- 
sociations. The truth is, that most men want knowledge, not for 
itself, but for the superiority which knowledge confers ; and the 
means they employ to secure this superiority, are as wrong as the 
ultimate object, for no man can ever end with being superior, who 
will not begin with being inferior. The readiest way of founding 
that empire of talent and knowledge which is the mistaken end 
such men propose to themselves of knowledge, is, patiently to gather 
from every understanding that will impart them, the materials of 
your future power and importance. There are some sayings in 
our language about merit being always united with modesty, &c. 
(I suppose because they both begin with an m, for alliteration has 
a great power over proverbs, and proverbs over public opinion) ; 
but I fancy that in the majority of instances, the fact is directly 
the reverse — that talents aud arrogance are commonly united, 
and that most clever young men of eighteen or nineteen believe 
themselves to be about the level of Demosthenes, or Virgil, or the 
Admirable Crichton, or John Duke of Marlborough : but whatever 
the fact be with respect to modesty, and omitting all the popularity 
and policy of modesty, I am sure modesty is a part of talent ; that 
a certain tendency to hear what others have to say, and to give it 
its due weight and importance, is quite as valuable as it is ami- 
able ; that it is a vast promoter of knowledge ; and that the con- 
trary habit of general contempt, is a very dangerous practice in 
the conduct of the understanding. It exists, I am afraid, com- 
monly in the minds of able men, but they would be much better 
without it, 



SUBTILTIES. 205 

SKEPTICISM. 

As for general skepticism, the only way to avoid it is, to 
seize on some first principles arbitrarily, and not to quit them. 
Take as few as you can help — about a tenth part of what Dr. 
Reid has taken will suffice — but take some, and proceed to build 
upon them. As I have before mentioned, the leading principle 
of Descartes' philosophy was, Cogito, ergo sum—- u ~I think, there- 
fore I exist ;" and having laid this foundation-stone, he built an 
enormous building, the ruins of which lie scattered up and down 
among the sciences in disordered glory and venerable confusion. 
Some of his disciples, however, could never get a single step 
farther; — they admitted their own existence, but could never 
deduce any one single truth from it. One might almost wish that 
these gentlemen had disencumbered themselves of this their only 
idea, by running down steep places, or walking very far into pro- 
found ponds, rather than that they should exhibit such a spectacle 
of stupidity and perversion. 

Such sort of questions as the credibility of memory, and per- 
sonal identity, are not merely innocent subtilties. I admit it is 
quite impossible in practice to disbelieve either the one or the 
other : but they excite a suspicion of the perfect uncertainty of 
all knowledge ; and they often keep young men hesitating and 
quibbling about the rudiments of all knowledge, instead of push- 
ing on their inquiries with cheerfulness and vigour. I am sure I 
am not stating an ideal evil ; but I know from actual experience, 
that many understandings have been retarded for years in their 
prosecution of solid and valuable knowledge, because they could 
see no evidence for first principles, and were unable to prove that 
which, by the very meaning of the expression must be incapable 
of all proof. They considered the whole as an unstable and un- 
philosophical fabric, and contracted either an indifference to, or 
contempt for truth. And if you choose to call all knowledge hy- 
pothetical, because first principles are arbitrarily assumed, you 
certainly may call it so, if you please ; but then I only contend 
that it does quite as well as if it were not hypothetical, because 
all the various errors agree perfectly well together, and produce 
that happiness which is the end of knowledge. 



206 THE ROUND MAN IN THE ROUND HOLE. 
THE RIGHT MAN IN THE RIGHT PLACE. 

It is a very wise rule in the conduct of the understanding, to 
acquire early a correct notion of your own peculiar constitution 
of mind, and to become well acquainted, as a physician would say, 
with your idiosyncrasy. Are you an acute man, and see sharply 
for small distances? or are you a comprehensive man, and able to 
take in wide and extensive views into your mind ? Does your 
mind turn its ideas into wit ? or are you apt to take a common- 
sense view of the objects presented to you ? Have you an exu- 
berant imagination, or a correct judgment? Are you quick, or 
slow ? accurate, or hasty ? a great reader, or a great thinker ? It 
is a prodigious point gained if any man can find out where his 
powers lie, and what are his deficiencies — if he can contrive to 
ascertain what Nature intended him for : and such are the changes 
and chances of the world, and so difficult is it to ascertain our own 
understandings, or those of others, that most things are clone by 
persons who could have done something else better. If you 
choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, 
of different shapes — some circular, some triangular, some square, 
some oblong — and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood 
of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person 
has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and 
a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The 
officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so 
exactly, that we can say they were almost made for each other. 



REWARDS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

But while I am descanting so minutely upon the conduct of 
the understanding, and the best modes of acquiring knowledge, 
some men may be disposed to ask, "Why conduct my under- 
standing with such endless care ? and what is the use of so much 
knowledge ?" What is the use of so much knowledge ? — what is 
the use of so much life? — what are we to do with the seventy 
years of existence allotted to us? — and how are we to live them 
out to the last? \l solemnly declare that, but for the love of 
knowledge, I should consider the life of the meanest hedger and 
ditcher, as preferable to that of the greatest and richest man here 



WAYS OF WISDOM. 207 

present : for the fire of our minds is like the fire which the Persians 
burn in the mountains — it flames night and clay, and is immortal, 
and not to be quenched ! Upon something it must act and feed — 
upon the pure spirit of knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of pol- 
luting passions. Therefore, when I say, in conducting your under- 
standing, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, 
with a love coeval with life, what do I say, but love innocence — 
love virtue — love purity of conduct — love that which, if you are 
rich and great, will sanctify the blind fortune which has made you 
so, and make men call it justice — love that which, if you are 
poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest 
feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes — love that 
which will comfort you, adorn you, and never quit you — which 
will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless 
regions of conception, as an asylum against the cruelty, the in- 
justice, and the pain, that may be your lot in the outer world — 
that which will make your motives habitually great and honour- 
able, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the 
very thought of meanness and of fraud ! \ Therefore, if any young 
man here have embarked his life in pursuit of Knowledge, let him 
go on without doubting or fearing the event ; - — let him not be in- 
timidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the dark- 
ness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover 
around her, by the wretched habitations in which she dwells, by 
the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train ; but 
let him ever follow her as the Angel that guards him, and as the 
Genius of his life. She will bring him out at last into the light 
of day, and exhibit him to the world comprehensive in acquire- 
ments, fertile in resources, rich in imagination, strong in reasoning, 
prudent and powerful above his fellows, in all the relations and in 
all the offices of life. 



EMULATION. * 

One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is to live 
with able men, and to suffer all those pangs of inferiority, which 

the want of knowledge always inflicts. Nothing short of some 

* This passage and the following, are from the second Lecture on the Con- 
duct of the Understanding. 



208 EARNEST STUDY. 

such powerful motive, can drive a young person in the full pos- 
session of health and bodily activity, to such an unnatural and such 
an unobvious mode of passing Ms life as study. But this is the 
way that intellectual greatness often begins. The trophies of Mil- 
tiades drive away sleep. A young man sees the honour in which 
knowledge is held by his fellow-creatures ; and he surrenders every 
present gratification, that he may gain them. The honour in 
which living genius is held, the trophies by which it is adorned 
after life, it receives and enjoys from the feelings of men — not 
from their sense of duty : but men never obey this feeling without 
discharging the first of all duties, without securing the rise and 
growth of genius, and increasing the dignity of our nature, by 
enlarging the dominion of mind. No eminent man was ever yet 
rewarded in vain ; no breath of praise was ever idly lavished upon 
him ; it has never yet been idle and foolish to rear up splendid 
monuments to his name : the rumour of these things impels young 
minds to the noblest exertions, creates in them an empire over 
present passions, inures them to the severest toils, determines 
them to live only for the use of others, and to leave a great and 
lasting memorial behind them. 



HEARTY READING. 

Beside the shame of inferiority, and the love of reputation, 
curiosity is a passion very favourable to the love of study and a 
passion very susceptible of increase by cultivation. Sound travels 
so many feet in a second ; and light travels so many feet in a 
second. Nothing more probable : but you do not care how light 
and sound travel. Very likely : but make yourself care ; get up, 
shake yourself well, pretend to care, make believe to care, and 
very soon you will care, and care so much, that you will sit for 
hours thinking about light and sound, and be extremely angry 
with any one who interrupts you in your pursuits; and tolerate 
no other conversation but about light and sound ; and catch your- 
self plaguing everybody to death who approaches you, with the 
discussion of these subjects. I am sure that a man ought to read 
as he would grasp a nettle : — do it lightly, and you get molested ; 
grasp it with all your strength, and you feel none of its asperities. 
There is nothing so horrible as languid study ; when you sit look- 



THE STUDENT LIFE. 209 

iiig at the clock, wishing the time was over, or that somebody 
would call on you and put you out of your misery. The only 
way to read with any efficacy, is to read so heartily, that dinner- 
times comes two hours before you expected it. To sit with your 
Livy before you, and hear the geese cackling that saved the cap- 
itol; and to see with your own eyes the Carthaginian sutlers 
gathering up the rings of the Eoman knights after the battle of 
Cannae, and heaping them into bushels ; and to be so intimately 
present at the actions you are reading of, that when anybody 
knocks at the door, it will take you two or three seconds to de- 
termine whether you are in your own study, or in the plains of 
Lombardy, looking at Hannibal's weather-beaten face, and admir- 
ing the splendour of his single eye ; — this is the only kind of study 
which is not tiresome ; and almost the only kind which is not use- 
less : this is the knowledge which gets into the system, and which 
a man carries about and uses like his limbs, without perceiving 
that is it extraneous, weighty, or inconvenient. 



HABITS OF STUDY. 

To study successfully, the body must be healthy, the mind at 
ease, and time managed with great economy. Persons who study 
many hours in the day, should perhaps, have two separate pursuits 
going on at the same time — one for one part of the day, and the 
other for the other ; and these of as opposite a nature as possible, 
— as Euclid and Ariosto ; Locke and Homer; Hartley on Man, 
and Voyages round the Globe ; that the mind may be refreshed 
by change, and all the bad effects of lassitude avoided. There 
is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one 
will object to ; and that is, every now and then to be completely 
idle — to do nothing at all: indeed, this part of a life of study is 
commonly considered as so decidedly superior to the rc>t, that it 
has almost obtained an exclusive preference over those other parts 
of the system, with which I wish to sec it connected. 

It has been often asked whether a man should study at stated 
intervals, or as the fit seizes him, and as he finds himself disposed 
to study. To this I answer, that where a man can trust himself, 
rules are superfluous. If his inclinations lead him to a fair share 
of exertion, he had much better trust to his inclinations alone ; 



210 ART OF THINKING. 

where they do not, they must be controlled by rules. It is just the 
same with sleep ; and with everything else. Sleep as much as 
you please, if your inclination lead you only to sleep as much as 
is convenient; if not, make rules. The system in everything 
ought to be — do as you please — so long as you please to do 
what is right. Upon these principles, every man must see how 
far he may trust to his inclinations, before he takes away their nat- 
ural liberty. I confess, however, it has never fallen to my lot to 
see many persons who could be trusted ; and the method, I believe, 
in which most great men have gone to work, is by regular and 
systematic industry. 

A little hard thinking will supply the place of a great deal of 
reading ; and an hour or two spent in this manner sometimes lead 
you to conclusions which it would require a volume to establish. 
The mind advances in its train of thought, as a restiif colt pro- 
ceeds on the road in which you wish to guide him ; he is always 
running to one side or the other, and deviating from the proper 
path, to which it is your affair to bring him back. I have asked 
several men what passes in their minds when they are thinking ; 
and I never could find any man who could think for two minutes 
together. Everybody has seemed to admit that it was a perpet- 
ual deviation from a particular path, and a perpetual return to it ; 
which, imperfect as the operation is, is the only method in which 
we can operate with our minds to carry on any process of thought. 
It takes some time to throw the mind into an attitude of thought, 
or into any attitude ; though the power of doing this, and, in gen- 
eral, of thinking, is amazingly increased by habit. We acquire, at 
length, a greater command over our associations, and are better 
enabled to pursue one object, unmoved by all the other thoughts 
which cross it in every direction. 

One of the best modes of improving in the art of thinking, is, to 
think over some subject, before you read upon it ; and then to ob- 
serve after what manner it has occurred to the mind of some great 
master. You will then observe whether you have been too rash 
or too timid; what you have omitted, and in what you. have ex- 
ceeded ; and by this process you will insensibly catch a great man- 
ner of viewing a question. It is right in study, not only to think 
when any extraordinary incident provokes you to think, but from 
time to time to review what has passed ; to dwell upon it, and to 



WRITING AND REFLECTION. 211 

see what trains of thought voluntarily present themselves to your 
mind. It is a most superior habit of some minds, to refer all the 
particular truths which strike them, to other truths more general : 
so that their knowledge is beautifully methodized : and the general 
truth at any time suggests all the particular exemplifications ; or 
any particular exemplification, at once leads to the general truth. 
This kind of understanding has an immense and decided superior- 
ity over those confused heads in which one fact is piled upon an- 
other, without the least attempt at classification and arrangement." 
Some men always read with a pen in their hand, and commit to 
paper any new thought which strikes them ; others trust to chance 
for its reappearance. Which of these is the best method in the 
conduct of the understanding, must, I should suppose, depend a 
great deal upon the particular understanding in question. Some 
men can do nothing without preparation ; others, little with it : 
some are fountains, some reservoirs. My very humble and limited 
experience goes to convince me, that it is a very useless practice ; 
that men seldom read again what they have committed to paper, 
nor remember what they have so committed one iota the better for 
their additional trouble : on the contrary, I believe it has a direct 
tendency to destroy the promptitude and tenacity of memory, by 
diminishing the vigour of present attention, and seducing the mind 
to depend upon future reference : at least, such is the effect I have 
uniformly found it to produce upon myself; and the same remark 
has been frequently made to me by other persons, of their own 
habits of study. I am by no means contending against the utility 
and expediency of writing ; on the contrary, I am convinced there 
can be no very great accuracy of mind without it. I am only an- 
imadverting upon that exaggerated use of it, which disunites the 
mind from the body : renders the understanding no longer portable, 
but leaves a man's wit and talents neatly written out in his com- 
monplace book, and safely locked up in the bottom drawer of 
his bureau. This is the abuse of writing. The use of it, I pre- 
sume, is, to give perspicuity and accuracy ; to fix a habitation for, 
and to confer a name upon, our ideas, so that they may be con- 
sidered and reconsidered themselves, and in their arrangement. 
Every man is extremely liable to be deceived in his reflections, 
till he has habituated himself to putting his thoughts upon paper, 
and perceived, from such a process, how often propositions that ap- 



212 BOOKS AND CONVERSATION. 

peared, before such development, to be almost demonstrable, have 
vanished into nonsense when a clearer light has been thrown upon 
them. I should presume, also, that much writing must teach a 
good order and method in the disposition of our reasonings ; be- 
cause the connection of any one part with the whole, will be made 
so much more evident than it can be before it is put into visible 
signs. Writing, also, must teach a much more accurate use of lan- 
guage. In conversation, any language almost will do ; that is, great 
indulgence is extended to the language of talkers, because a talker 
is at hand to explain himself, and his looks and gestures are a sort 
of comment upon his words, and help to interpret them : but as a 
writer has no such auxiliary language to communicate his ideas, 
and no power of re-explaining them when once clothed in language, 
he has nothing to depend upon but a steady and careful use of 
terms. 



CONVERSATION. 

The advantage conversation has over all the other modes of im- 
proving the mind, is, that it is more natural and more interesting. A 
book has no eyes, and ears, and feelings ; the best are apt every now 
and then to become a little languid ; whereas, a living book walks 
about, and varies his conversation and manner, and prevents you 
from going to sleep. There is certainly a great evil in this, as 
well as a good ; for the interest between a man and his living folio, 
becomes sometimes a little too keen, and in the competition for 
victory they become a little too animated toward, and sometimes 
exasperated against, each other; whereas, a man and his book 
generally keep the peace with tolerable success ; and if they dis- 
agree, the man shuts his book, and tosses it into a corner of the 
room, which it might not be quite so safe or easy to do with a liv- 
ing folio. It is an inconvenience in a book, that you can not ask 
questions ; there is no explanation ; and a man is less guarded in 
conversation than in a book, and tells you with more honesty the 
little niceties and exceptions of his opinions; whereas, in a book, 
as his opinions are canvassed where they cannot be explained 
and defended, he often overstates a point for fear of being misun- 
derstood; but then, on the contrary, almost every man talks a 
great deal better in his books, with more sense, more information, 



INDIVIDUAL TALENT. 213 

and more reflection than he can possibly do in his conversation, 
because he has more time. 



ALLOWANCE FOR INDIVIDUAL PECULIARITIES. 

It is a great thing toward making right judgments, if a man 
know what allowance to make for himself; and what discount 
should habitually be given to his opinions, according as he is old 
or young, French or English, clergyman or layman, rich or poor, 
torpid or fiery, healthy or ill, sorrowful or gay. All these various 
circumstances are perpetually communicating to the objects about 
them a colour which is not their true colour ! whereas wisdom is 
of no age, nation, profession, or temperament ; and is neither sor- 
rowful nor sad. A man must have some particular qualities, and 
be affected by some particular circumstances ; but the object is, to 
discover what they are, and habitually to allow for them. 



STICK TO TOUR GENIUS. 

There is one circumstance I would preach up, morning, noon, 
and night, to young persons for the management of their under- 
standing. Whatever you are from nature, keep to it ; never desert 
your own line of talent. If Providence only intended you to write 
posies for rings, or mottoes for twelfth-cakes, keep to posies and 
mottoes ; a good motto for a twelfth-cake is more respectable than 
a villanous epic poem in twelve books. Be what nature intended 
you for, and you will succeed ; be anything else, and you will be 
ten thousand times worse than nothing. 



USES OF WIT. 

If black and white men live together, the consequence is, that, 
unless great care be taken, they quarrel and fight. There is nearly 
as strong a disposition in men of opposite winds to despise each 
other. A grave man cannot conceive what is the use of wit in 
society ; a person who takes a strong common-sense view of a sub- 
ject, is for pushing out by the head and shoulders an ingenious 
theorist, who catches at the lightest and faintest analogies ; and 
another man, who scents the ridiculous from afar, will hold no 



214 ECONOMY OF INTELLECT. 

commerce with him who tastes exquisitely the fine feelings of the 
heart, and is alive to nothing else ; whereas talent is talent, and 
mind is mind, in all its branches ! Wit gives to life one of its best 
flavours ; common sense leads to immediate action, and gives so- 
ciety its daily motion ; large and comprehensive views, its annual 
rotation ; ridicule chastises folly and impudence, and keeps men in 
their proper sphere ; subtlety seizes hold of the fine threads of 
truth ; analogy darts away to the most sublime discoveries ; feel- 
ing paints all the exquisite passions of man's soul, and rewards 
him by a thousand inward visitations for the sorrows that come 
from without. God made it all ! It is all good ! We must despise 
no sort of talent ; they all have their separate duties and uses ; all, 
the happiness of man for their object ; they all improve, exalt, and 
gladden life. 



CAUTION. 



Caution, though it must be considered as something very dif- 
ferent from talent, is no mean aid to every species of talent. As 
some men are so skilful in economy, that they will do as much with 
a hundred pounds as another will do with two, so there are a 
species of men, who have a wonderful management of their under- 
standings, and will make as great a show, and enjoy as much con- 
sideration, with a certain quantity of understanding, as others will 
do with the double of their portion ; and this by watching times 
and persons ; by taking strong positions, and never fighting but 
from the vantage ground, and with great disparity of numbers ; 
in short, by risking nothing, and by a perpetual and systematic 
attention to the security of reputation. Such rigid economy — by 
laying out every shilling at compound interest — very often accu- 
mulates a large stock of fame, where the original capital has been 
very inconsiderable ; and, of course, may command any degree of 
opulence, where it sets out from great beginnings, and is united 
with real genius. For the want of this caution, there is an habit- 
ual levity sometimes fixes itself upon the minds of able men, and 
a certain manner of viewing and discussing all questions in a frivo- 
lous mocking manner, as if they had looked through all human 
knowledge, and found in it nothing but what they could easily 
master, and were entitled to despise. Of all mistakes the greatest, to 



REPAIR OF FAILURE, 215 

live and to think life of no consequence ; to fritter away the powers 
of the understanding, merely to make others believe that you pos- 
sess them in a more eminent degree ; and gradually to diminish 
your interest in human affairs, from an affected air of superiority, 
to which neither yourself nor any human being can possibly be en- 
titled. It is a beautiful mark of a healthy and right understand- 
ing, when a man is serious and attentive to all great questions ; 
when you observe him, with modesty and attention, adding gradu- 
ally to his conviction and knowledge on such topics ; not repulsed 
by his own previous mistakes, not disgusted by the mistakes of 
others, but in spite of violence and error, believing that there is, 
somewhere or other, moderation and truth — and that to seek that 
truth with diligence, with seriousness, and with constancy, is one of 
the highest and best objects for which a man can live. 

Some men get early disgusted with the task of improvement, 
and the cultivation of the mind, from some excesses which they 
have committed, and mistakes into which they have been betrayed, 
at the beginning of life. They abuse the whole art of navigation, 
because they have stuck upon a shoal ; whereas, the business is, 
to refit, careen, and set out a second time. The navigation is very 
difficult ; few of us get through it at first, without some rubs and 
lossos — which the world are always ready enough to forgive, 
where they are honestly confessed, and diligently repaired. It 
would, indeed, be a piteous case, if a young man were pinioned 
down through life to the first nonsense he happens to write or talk ; 
and the world are, to do them justice, sufficiently ready to release 
them from such obligation ; but what they do not forgive is, that 
juvenile enthusiasm and error, which ends in mature profligacy ; 
which begins with mistaking what is right, and ends with denying 
that there is any right at all: which leaps from partial confi- 
dence to universal skepticism ; which says, " There is no such thing 
as true religion and rational liberty, because I have been a furious 
zealot, or a seditious demagogue." Such men should be taught 
that wickedness is never an atonement for mistake ; and they should 
be held out as a lesson to the young, that unless they are contented 
to form their opinions modestly, they will too often be induced to 
abandon them entirely. 

There is something extremely fascinating in quickness; and 
most men are desirous of appearing quick. The great rule for be- 



216 SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 

coming so, is, by not attempting to appear quicker than you really 
are ; by resolving to understand yourself and others, and to know 
what you mean, and what they mean, before you speak or answer. 
Every man must submit to be slow before he is quick ; and insig- 
nificant before he is important. 



PLEASURES OF KNOWLEDGE. 

The too early struggle against the pain of obscurity, corrupts no 
small share of understandings. Well and happily has that man 
conducted his understanding, who has learned to derive from the 
exercise of it, regular occupation and rational delight ; who, after 
having overcome the first pain of application, and acquired a habit 
of looking inwardly upon his own mind, perceives that every day 
is multiplying the relations, confirming the accuracy, and augment- 
ing the number of his ideas ; who feels that he is rising in the 
scale of intellectual beings, gathering new strength with every 
difficulty which he subdues, and enjoying to-day as his pleasure, 
that which yesterday he laboured at as his toil. There are many 
consolations in the mind of such a man, which no common fife can 
ever afford ; and many enjoyments which it has not to give ! It is 
not the mere cry of moralists, and the flourish of rhetoricians ; but 
it is noble to seek truth, and it is beautiful to find it. It is the an- 
cient feeling of the human heart, that knowledge is better than 
riches ; and it is deeply and sacredly true ! To mark the course of 
human passions as they have flowed on in the ages that are past ; 
to see why nations have risen, and why they have fallen ; to speak 
of heat, and light, and the winds ; to know what man has discov- 
ered in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath ; to hear the 
chemist unfold the marvellous properties that the Creator has 
locked up in a speck of earth ; to be told that there are worlds so 
distant from our sun, that the quickness of light travelling from the 
world's creation, has never yet reached us, to wander in the crea- 
tions of poetry, and grow warm again, with that eloquence which 
swayed the democracies of the old world ; to go up with great 
reasoners to the First Cause of all, and to perceive in the midst 
of all this dissolution and decay, and cruel separation, that there is 
one thing unchangeable, indestructible, and everlasting; — it is 
worth while in the days of our youth to strive hard for this great 



wit. 217 

discipline ; to pass sleepless nights for it, to give up to it laborious 
days ; to spurn for it present pleasures ; to endure for it afflicting 
poverty ; to wade for it through darkness, and sorrow, and con- 
tempt, as the great spirits of the world have done in all ages and 
all times. 

I appeal to the experience of any man who is in the habit of 
exercising his mind vigorously and well, whether there is not a 
satisfaction in it, which tells him he has been acting up to one of 
the great objects of his existence ? The end of nature has been 
answered : his faculties have done that which they were created to 
do — not languidly occupied upon trifles — : not enervated by sensual 
gratification, but exercised in that toil which is so congenial to 
their nature, and so worthy of their strength. A life of knowledge 
is not often a life of injury and crime. Whom does such a man 
oppress ? with whose happiness does he interfere ? whom does his 
ambition destroy, and whom does his fraud deceive ? In the pur- 
suit of science he injures no man, and in the acquisition he does 
good to all. A man who dedicates his life to knowledge, becomes 
habituated to pleasure which carries with it no reproach : and there 
is one security that he will never love that pleasure which is paid 
for by anguish of heart — his pleasures are all cheap, all dignified, 
and all innocent ; and, as far as any human being can expect per- 
manence in this changing scene, he has secured a happiness which 
no malignity of fortune can ever take away, but which must cleave 
to him while he lives — ameliorating every good and diminishing 
every evil of his existence. 



ESSENTIALS OF WIT.* 

To begin at the beginning of this discussion, it is plain that wit 
concerns itself with the relations which subsist between our ideas : 
and the first observation which occurs to any man turning his at- 
tention to this subject is, that it cannot, of course, concern itself 
with all the relations which subsist between all our ideas ; for then 
every proposition would be willy; — The rain wets me through — - 
Butter is spread upon bread — would be propositions replete with 

* This and the following passages are from Lectures on Wit and Humour, 
Parti. 

10 



?i8 SURPRISE. 

i irth ; and the moment the mind observed the plastic and diffusi- 
ble nature of butter, and the excellence of bread as a substratum, 
it would become enchanted with this flash of facetiousness. There- 
fore, the first limit to be affixed to that observation of relations, 
wnich produces the feeling of wit, is, that they must be relations 
which excite surprise. If you tell me that all men must die, I 
am very little struck with what you say, because it is not an asser- 
tion very remarkable for its novelty ; but if you were to say that 
man was like a time-glass — that both must run out, and both ren- 
d 3r up their dust, I should listen to you with more attention, be- 
cause I should feel something like surprise at the sudden relation 
you had struck out between two such apparently dissimilar ideas 
as a man and a time-glass. 

Surprise is so essential an ingredient of wit, that no wit will 
be.-tr repetition — at least the original electrical feeling produced 
by any piece of wit can never be renewed. There is a sober sort 
o r approbation succeeds at hearing it the second time, which is as 
different from its original rapid, pungent volatility, as a bottle of 
champagne that has been open three days is, from one that has 
at that very instant emerged from the darkness of the cellar. To 
hear that the top of Mont Blanc is like an umbrella, though the 
re 7 ation be new to me, is not sufficient to excite surprise ; the idea 
is so very obvious, it is so much within the reach of the most ordi- 
nary understandings, that I can derive no sort of pleasure from 
the comparison. The relation discovered, must be something re- 
mote from all the common tracks and sheep-w T alks made in the 
mind ; it must not be a comparison of colour with colour, and fig- 
ure with figure, or any comparison which, though individually 
new, is specifically stale, and to which the mind has been in the 
habit of making many similar; but it must be something removed 
from common apprehension, distant from the ordinary haunts of 
thought — things which are never brought together in the common 
events of life, and in which the mind has discovered relations by 
its own subtilty and quickness. 

Now, then, the point we have arrived at, at present, in building 
up our definition of wit, is, that it is the discovery of those relations 
in ideas which are calculated to excite surprise. But a great deal 
moist be taken away from this account of wit before it is sufficiently 
accurate ; for, in the first place, there must be no feeling or convic- 



RELATION BETWEEN IDEAS. 219 

tion of the utility of the relation so discovered. If you go to see 
a large cotton-mill, the manner in which the large water-wheel be- 
low works the little parts of the machinery seven stories high, the 
relation which one bears to another, is extremely surprising to a 
person unaccustomed to mechanics ; but, instead of feeling as you 
feel at a piece of wit, you are absorbed in the contemplation of the 
utility and importance of such relations — there is a sort of rational 
approbation mingled with your surprise, which makes the whole 
feeling very different from that of wit. At the same time, if we 
attend very accurately to our feelings, we shall perceive that the 
discovery of any surprising relation whatever, produces some slight 
sensation of wit. When first the manner in which a steam-engine 
opens and shuts its own valves is explained to me, or when I at 
first perceive the ingenious and complicated contrivances of any 
piece of machinery, the surprise that I feel at the discovery of 
these connections has always something in it which resembles the 
feeling of wit, though that is very soon extinguished by others of 
a very different nature. Children, who view the different parts 
of a machine not so much with any notions of its utility, feel some- 
thing still more like the sensation of wit when first they perceive 
the effect which one part produces upon another. Show a child 
of six years old, that, by moving the treadle of a knife-grinder's 
machine, you make the large wheel turn round, or that by pressing 
the spring of a rep eating-watch you make the watch strike, and 
you probably raise up a feeling in the child's mind precisely simi- 
lar to that of wit. There is a mode of teaching children geography 
by disjointed parts of a wooden map, which they fit together. I 
have no doubt that the child, in finding the kingdom or republic 
which fits into a great hole in the wooden sea, feels exactly the 
sensation of wit. Every one must remember that fitting the in- 
viting projection of Crim Tartary into the Black Sea was one of 
the greatest delights of their childhood ; and almost all children 
are sure to scream with pleasure at the discovery. 

The relation between ideas which excite, surprise, in order to be 
witty, must not excite any feeling of the beautiful. "The good 
man," says a Hindoo epigram, "goes no! upon enmity, but rewards 
witli kindness the very being who injures him. So the sandal- 
wood, while it is felling, imparts to the edge of the axe its aromatic 
flavour." Now here is a relation which would be witty if it w r ere 



220 WIT AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 

not beautiful : the relation discovered betwixt the falling sandal- 
wood, and the returning good for evil, is a new relation which 
excites surprise ; but the mere surprise at the relation, is swallowed 
up by the contemplation of the moral beauty of the thought, which 
throws the mind into a more solemn and elevated mood than is 
compatible with the feeling of wit. 

It would not be a difficult thing to do (and if the limits of my 
lecture allowed I would do it), to select from Cowley and Waller 
a suite of passages, in order to show the effect of the beautiful in 
destroying the feeling of wit, and vice versa. First, I would take 
a passage purely witty, in which the mind merely contemplated 
the singular and surprising relation of the ideas : next, a passage 
where the admixture of some beautiful sentiment — the excitation 
of some slight moral feeling — arrested the mind from the con- 
templation of the relation between the ideas ; then, a passage in 
which the beautiful overpowered still more the facetious, till, at 
last, it was totally destroyed. 

If the relation between the ideas, to produce wit, must not be 
mingled with the beautiful, still less must they be so with the 
sublime. In that beautiful passage in Mr. Campbell's poem of 
"Lochiel," the wizard repeats these verses — which were in every 
one's mouth when first the poem was written : — 

" Lochiel ! Loehiel ! though my eves I should seal, 
Man can not keep secret what God would reveal 
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 

Now this comparison of the dark uncertain sort of prescience of 
future events implied by the gift of second sight, and the notice of 
an approaching solid body by the previous approach of its shadow, 
contains a new and striking relation ; but it is not witty, nor would 
it ever have been considered as witty, if expressed in a more con- 
cise manner, and with the rapidity of conversation, because it in- 
spires feelings of a much higher cast than those of wit, and, 
instead of suffering the mind to dwell upon the mere relation of 
ideas, fills it with a sort of mysterious awe, and gives an air of 
sublimity to the fabulous power of prediction. Every one knows 
the Latin line on the miracle at the marriage-supper in Cana of 
Galilee — on the conversion of water into wine. The poet says, 



THE SUBLIME. 221 

" The modest water saw iU God, and blushed!"* 

Now, in my mind, that sublimity which some persons discover in 
this passage is destroyed by its wit; it appears to me witty, and 
not sublime. I have no great feelings excited by it, and can per- 
fectly well stop to consider the mere relation of ideas. I hope I 
need not add, that the line, if it produce the effect of a witty con- 
ceit, and not of a sublime image, is perfectly misplaced and irrev- 
erent : the intent, however, of the poet, was undoubtedly to be 
serious. In the same manner, whenever the mind is not left to 
the mere surprise excited by the relation of ideas, but when that 
relation excites any powerful emotion — as those of the sublime 
and beautiful, or any high passion — as anger or pity, or any train 
of reflections upon the utility of the relations, the feeling of wit is 
always diminished or destroyed. It seems to be occasioned by 
those relations of ideas which excite surprise, and surprise alone. 
Whenever relations excite any other strong feeling as well as 
surprise, the wit is either destroyed, diminished, or the two co- 
existent feelings of wit and the other emotion may, by careful 
reflection, be distinguished from each other. I may be very 
wrong (for these subjects are extremely difficult), but I know no 
single passage in any author which is at once beautiful and witty, 
or sublime and witty. I know innumerable passages which are 
intended to be beautiful or sublime, and which are merely witty ; 
and I know many passages in which the relation of ideas is very 
new and surprising, and which are not witty because they are 
beautiful and sublime. Lastly, when the effect of wit is height- 
ened by strong sense and useful truth, we may perceive in the 
mind what part of the pleasure arises from the mere relation of 
ideas, what from the utility of the precept ; and many instances 
might be produced, where the importance and utility of the thing 
said, prevent the mind from contemplating the mere relation, and 
considering it as wit. For example : in that apophthegm of Roche- 
foucault, that hypocrisy is a homage which vice renders to virtue, 
the image is witty, but all attention to the mere wit is swallowed 

* Campbell (Specimens of British Poets) assigns the Latin line to Cra- 
shaw : — 

"Lympha pudica I)cum vidit et erubuit." 
The conceit had been previously employed by Vida. It is traced by a writer 
in Notes and Queries. Oct. 1G ; 1852. 



222 INSTANCES OF WIT. 

up in the justness and value of the observation. So that I think 
I have some colour for saying, that wit is produced by those rela- 
tions between ideas which excite surprise, and surprise only. 
Observe, I am only denning the causes of a certain feeling in the 
mind called wit ; I can no more define the feeling itself, than I can 
define the flavour of venison. We all seem to partake of one 
and the other, with a very great degree of satisfaction ; but why 
each feeling is what it is, and nothing else, I am sure I cannot 
pretend to determine. 

Louis XIV. was exceedingly molested by the solicitations of a 
general officer at the levee, and cried out, loud enough to be over- 
heard, " That gentleman is the most troublesome officer in the 
whole army." " Your Majesty's enemies have said the same thing 
more than once," was the answer. The wit of this answer consists 
in the sudden relation discovered in his assent to the King's invec- 
tive and his own defence. By admitting the King's observation, 
he seems, at first sight, to be subscribing to the imputation against 
him ; whereas, in reality, he effaces it by this very means. A 
sudden relation is discovered where none was suspected. Yoltaire, 
in speaking of the effect of epithets in weakening style, said, that 
the adjectives were the greatest enemies of the substantives, 
though they agreed in gender, number, and in cases. Here, again, 
it is very obvious that a relation is discovered which, upon first 
observation, does not appear 4q exist. These instances may be 
multiplied to any extent. A gentleman at Paris, who lived very 
unhappily with his wife, used, for twenty years together, to pass 
his evenings at the house of another lady, who was very agreeable, 
and drew together a pleasant society. His wife died; and his 
friends all advised him to marry the lady in whose society he had 
found so much pleasure. He said, no, he certainly should not, for 
that, if he married her, he should not know where to spend his 
evenings. Here we are suddenly surprised with the idea that the 
method proposed of securing his comfort may possibly prove the 
most effectual method of destroying it. At least, to enjoy the 
pleasantry of the reply, we view it through his mode of thinking, 
who had not been very fortunate in the connection established by 
his first marriage. I have, in consequence of the definition I have 
printed of wit in the cards of the Institution, passed one of the 
most polemical weeks that ever I remember to have spent in my 



RELATIONS BETWEEN FACTS. 223 

life. I think, however, that if my words are understood in their 
fair sense, I am not wrong. I have said, surprising relations be 
tween ideas — not between facts. The difference is very great. 
A man may tell me he sees a fiery meteor on the surface of the 
sea: he has no merit in the discovery — it is no extraordinary act 
of mind in him — any one who has eyes can ascertain this relation 
of facts as well, if it really exist; but to discover a surprising 
relation in ideas, is an act of power in the discoverer, in which, if 
his wit be good, he exceeds the greater part of mankind : so that 
the very terms I have adopted, imply comparison and superiority 
of mind. The discovery of any relation of ideas exciting pure 
surprise involves the notion of such superiority, and enhances the 
surprise. To discover relations between facts exciting pure sur- 
prise, involves the notion of no such superiority; for any man 
could ascertain that a calf had two heads if it had two heads : 
therefore, I again repeat, let any man show me that which is an 
acknowledged proof of wit, and I believe I could analyze the pleas- 
ure experienced from it into surprise, partly occasioned by the 
unexpected relation established, partly by the display of talent in 
discovering it; and, putting this position synthetically, I would 
say, whenever there is a superior act of intelligence in discovering 
a relation between ideas, which relation excites surprise, and no 
other high emotion, the mind will have the feeling of wit. Why 
is it not witty to find a gold watch and seals hanging upon a hedge ? 
Because it is a mere relation of facts discovered without any effort 
of mind, and not (as I have said in my definition), a relation of 
ideas. Why is it not witty to discover the relation between the 
moon and the tides ? Because it raises other notions than those of 
mere surprise. Why are not all the extravagant relations in 
Garagantua witty ? Because they are merely odd and extrava- 
gant ; and mere oddity and extravagance is too easy to excite sur- 
prise. Why is it witty, in one of Addison's plays,* where the 
undertaker reproves one of his mourners for laughing at a funeral, 
and says to him, " You rascal, you ! I have been raising your 
wages for these two years past, upon condition that you should 

* Not Addison, but Steele, in the comedy of u The Funcnil : or, Grief A -La- 
Mode," where Sable addresses one of his men : " Did not I give you ten, then 
fifteen, now twenty shillings a week, to be sorrowful? and the more I give 
you, I think, the gladder you are." 



224 WIT CULTIVABLE. 

appear more sorrowful, and the higher wages you receive the 
happier you look !" Here is a relation between ideas, the dis- 
covery of which implies superior intelligence, and excites no other 
emotion than surprise. 



WIT A CULTIVABLE FACULTY. 

It is imagined that wit is a sort of inexplicable visitation, that 
it comes and goes with the rapidity of lightning, and that it is quite 
as unattainable as beauty or just proportion. I am so much of a 
contrary way of thinking, that I am convinced a man might sit 
down as systematically, and as successfully to the study of wit, 
as he might to the study of mathematics : and I would answer for 
it, that, by giving up only six hours a day to being witty, he 
should come on prodigiously before midsummer, so that his friends 
should hardly know him again. For what is there to hinder the 
mind from gradually acquiring a habit of attending to the lighter 
relations of ideas in which wit consists ? Punning grows upon 
everybody, and punning is the wit of words. I do not mean to 
say that it is so easy to acquire a habit of discovering new relations 
in ideas as in ivords, but the difficulty is not so much greater as to 
render it insuperable to habit. One man is unquestionably much 
better calculated for it by nature than another: but association, 
which gradually makes a bad speaker a good one, might give a 
man wit who had it not, if any man chose to be so absurd as to 
sit down to acquire it. 



PUNS. 

I have mentioned puns. They are, I believe, what I have 
denominated them — the wit of words. The are exactly the same 
to words which wit is to ideas, and consist in the sudden discovery 
of relations in language. A pun, to be perfect in its kind, should 
contain two distinct meanings ; the one common and obvious ; the 
other, more remote : and in the notice which the mind takes of the 
relation between these two sets of words, and in the surprise which 
that relation excites, the pleasure of a pun consists. Miss Hamil- 
ton, in her book on Education, mentions the instance of a boy so 
very neglectful, that he could never be brought to read the word 
patriarchs; but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it 



PUNNING. 225 

partridges. A friend of the writer observed to her, that it could 
hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared 
to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was making game 
of the patriarchs. Now here are two distinct meanings contained 
in the same phrase : for to make game of the patriarchs is to laugh 
at them ; or to make game of them is, by a very extravagant and 
laughable sort of ignorance of words, to rank them among pheasants, 
partridges, and other such delicacies, which the law takes under its 
protection and calls game ; and the whole pleasure derived from 
this pun consists in the sudden discovery that two such different 
meanings are referable to one form of expression. I have very 
little to say about puns ; they are in very bad repute and so they 
ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the 
wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good com- 
pany. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems 
for a moment to redeem its species ; but we must not be deceived 
by them ; it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting per- 
secution, it has been at last got under, and driven into cloisters, 
— from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into the 
light of the world. One invaluable blessing produced by the ban- 
ishment of punning is, an immediate reduction of the number of 
wits. It is a wit of so low an order, and in which some sort 
of progress is so easily made, that the number of those endowed 
with the gift of wit would be nearly equal to those endowed with 
the gift of speech. The condition of putting together ideas in 
order to be witty operates much in the same salutary manner as 
the condition of finding rhymes in poetry ; — it reduces the num- 
ber of performers to those who have vigour enough to overcome 
incipient difficulties, and makes a sort of provision that that which 
need not be done at all, should be done ivell whenever it is done. 
For we may observe, that mankind are always more fastidious 
about that which is pleasing, than they are about thai which is 
useful. A commonplace piece of morality is much more easily 
pardoned than a commonplace piece of poetry or of wit; because 
it is absolutely necessary for the well-being of society that the 
rules of morality should be frequently repeated and enforced; 
and though in any individual instance the thing may be badly done, 
the sacred necessity of the practice Itself, atones in some degree 
for the individual failure ; but as there is no absolute necessity 

10* 



226 ABOYB RIDICULE. 

that men should be either wits or poets, we are less inclined to 
tolerate their mediocrity in superfluities. If a man have or- 
dinary chairs and tables, no one notices it ; but if he stick vulgar 
gaudy pictures on his walls, which he need not have at all, every 
one laughs at him for his folly. 



A SARCASM. 

A sarcasm (which is another species of wit) generally consists 
in the obliquity of the invective. It must not be direct assertion, 
but something established by inference and analogy ; — something 
which the mind does not at first perceive, but in the discovery of 
which it experiences the pleasure of surprise. A true sarcasm is 
like a sword-stick — it appears, at first sight, to be much more in- 
nocent than it really is, till, all of a sudden, there leaps something 
out of it — sharp, and deadly, and incisive — which makes you 
tremble and recoil. 



SUPERIORITY TO RIDICULE. 

I know of no principle which it is of more importance to fh: in 
the minds of young people than that of the most determined resist- 
ance to the encroachments of ridicule. Give up to the world, 
and to the ridicule with which the world enforces its dominion, 
every trifling question of manner and appearance : it is to toss 
courage and firmness to the winds, to combat with the mass upon 
such subjects as these. But learn from the earliest days to inure 
your principles against the perils of ridicule : you can no more 
exercise your reason, if you live in the constant dread of laughter, 
than you can enjoy your life, if you are in the constant terror of 
death. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make 
a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, 
however antiquated, however pedantic, it may appear; — do it, 
not for insolence, but seriously and grandly — as a man who wore 
a soul of his own in his bosom, and did not wait till it was 
breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you 
mean, if you know you are just ; hypocritical, if you are honestly 
religious ; pusillanimous, if you feel that you are firm : resistance 
soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect ; and no after- 

i 



HUMOUR. 227 

time can tear from you those feelings which every man carries 
within him who has made a nobie and successful exertion in a 
virtuous cause. 



NATURE OF HUMOUR.* 

Hobbes defines laughter to be " a sudden glory, arising from 
a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison 
with infirmity of others, or our own former infirmity." By in- 
firmity he must mean, I presume, marked and decided inferiority, 
whether accidental and momentary, or natural and permanent. 
He cannot, of course, mean by it, what we usually denominate in- 
firmity of body or mind ; for it must be obvious, at the first mo- 
ment, that humour has a much wider range than this. If we were 
to see a little man walking in the streets with a hat half as big as 
an umbrella, we should laugh ; and that laughter certainly could 
not be ascribed to the infirmities either of his body or mind : for 
his diminutive figure, without his disproportionate hat, I shall sup- 
pose by hypothesis, to be such as would excite no laughter at all ; 
« — and, indeed, an extraordinary large man, with a hat such as is 
worn by boys of twelve years old, would be an object quite as 
ludicrous. 

Taking, therefore, the language of Hobbes to mean the sudden 
discovery of any inferiority, it will be very easy to show that 
such is not the explanation of that laughter excited by humour : 
for I may discover suddenly that a person has lost half-a-crown — 
or, that his tooth aches — or, that his house is not so well built, or 
his coat not so well made, as mine ; and yet none of these dis- 
coveries give me the slightest sensation of the humourous. If it 
be suggested that these proofs of inferiority are very slight, the 
theory of Hobbes is still more weakened, by recurring to greater 
instances of inferiority: for the sudden informal ion that any one 
of my acquaintance has broken his leg, or is completely ruined in 
his fortunes, has decidedly very little of humour in it ; — at least it 
is not very customary to be thrown into paroxysms of Ian.;: 
by such sort of intelligence. It is clear, (lien, that there are 
many instances of the sudden discos cry of inferiorities and infirm- 

t This passage aiid the following arc from the Lecture on Wit and Hu- 
mour, Part II. 



228 INCONGRUITY. 

ities in others, which excite no laughter ; and, therefore, pride is 
not the explanation of laughter excited by the humourous. It is 
true, the object of laughter is always inferior to us ; but then the 
converse is not true — that every one who is inferior to us is an 
object of laughter : therefore, as some inferiority is ridiculous, and 
other inferiority not ridiculous, we must, in order to explain the 
nature of the humourous, endeavour to discover the discriminating 
cause. 

This discriminating cause is incongruity, or the conjunction of 
objects and circumstances not usually combined — and the con- 
junction of which is either useless, or what in the common estima- 
tion of men would be considered as rather troublesome, and not to 
be desired. To see a young officer of eighteen years of age come 
into company in full uniform, and with such a wig as is worn by 
grave and respectable clergymen advanced in years, would make 
every body laugh, because it certainly is a very unusual combina- 
tion of objects, and such as would not atone for its novelty by any 
particular purpose of utility to which it was subservient. It is a 
complete instance of incongruity. Add ten years to the age of 
this incongruous officer, the incongruity would be very faintly 
diminished; — make him eighty years of age, and a celebrated 
military character of the last reign, and the incongruity almost 
entirely vanishes : I am not sure that we should not be rather 
more disposed to respect the peculiarity than to laugh at it. As 
you increase the incongruity, you increase the humour ; as you 
diminish it, you diminish the humour. If a tradesman of a cor- 
pulent and respectable appearance, with habiliments somewhat 
ostentatious, were to slide down gently into the mud, and decor- 
ate a pea-green coat, I am afraid we should all have the barbarity 
to laugh. If his hat and wig, like treacherous servants, were to 
desert their falling master, it certainly would not diminish our 
propensity to laugh ; but if he were to fall into a violent passion, 
and abuse everybody about him, nobody could possibly resist the 
incongruity of a pea-green tradesman, very respectable, sitting in 
the mud, and threatening all the passers-by with the effects of his 
wrath. Here, every incident heightens the humour of the scene : 
•—the gayety of his tunic, the general respectability of his ap- 
pearance, the rills of muddy water which trickle down his cheeks, 
and the harmless violence of his rage ! But if, instead of this, wo 



REPETITION. 229 

were to observe a dustman falling into the mud, it would hardly 
attract any attention, because the opposition of ideas is so trifling, 
and the incongruity so slight. . 

Surprise is as essential to humour as it is to wit. In going into 
a foreign country for the first time, we are exceedingly struck 
with the absurd appearance of some of the ordinary characters we 
meet with : a very short time, however, completely reconciles us 
to the phenomena of French abbes and French postilions, and all 
the variety of figures so remote from those we are accustomed to, 
and which surprise us so much at our first acquaintance with that 
country. I do not mean to say, either of one class of the ridicu- 
lous or of the other, that perfect novelty is absolutely a necessary 
ingredient to the production of any degree of pleasure, but that the 
pleasure arising from humour diminishes, as the surprise diminish- 
es ; it is less at the second exhibition of any piece of humour than 
at the first, less at the third than the second, till at last it becomes 
trite and disgusting. A piece of humour will, however, always 
bear repetition much better than a piece of wit ; because, as hu- 
mour depends in some degree on manner, there will probably al- 
ways be in that manner, something sufficiently different from what 
it was before, to prevent the disagreeable effects of complete same- 
ness. If I say a good thing to-day, and repeat it again to-morrow 
in another company, the flash of to-flay is as much like the flash of 
to-morrow as the flash of one musket is like the flash of another ; but 
if I tell a humourous story, there are a thousand little diversities 
in my voice, manner, language, and gestures, which make it rather 
a different thing from what it was before, and infuse a tinge of 
novelty into the repeated narrative. 

It is by no means, however, sufficient, to say of humour, that it 
is incongruity which excites surprise ; the same limits are neces- 
sary here which I have before affixed to wit — it must excite sur- 
prise, and nothing but surprise ; for the moment it calls into action 
any other high and impetuous emotion, all sense of the humourous 
is immediately at an end. For, to return again to our friend 
dressed in green, whom we left in the mud — suppose, instead of 
a common, innocent tumble, he had experienced a very <v\m\ 
fall, and we discovered that he had broken a limb ; our laughter 
is immediately extinguished, and converted into a lively feeling of 
compassion. The incongruity is precisely as great as it was be- 



230 SUBJECTS FOR HUMOUR. 

fore ; but as it has excited another feeling not compatible with the 
ridiculous, all mixture of the humourous is at end. 

The sense of the humourous is as incompatible with tenderness 
and respect as with compassion. No man would laugh to see a 
little child fall ; and he would be shocked to see such an accident 
happen to an old man, or a woman, or to his father ! It is an odd 
case to put, but I should like to know if any man living could have 
laughed if he had seen Sir Isaac Newton rolling in the mud? I 
believe that not only Senior Wranglers and Senior Optimi would 
have run to his assistance, but that dustmen, and carmen, and 
coal-heavers would have run and picked him up, and set him to 
rights. It is a beautiful thing to observe the boundaries which 
nature has affixed to the ridiculous, and to notice how soon it is 
swallowed up by the more illustrious feelings of our minds. 
Where is the heart so hard that could bear to see the awkward 
resources and contrivances of the poor turned into ridicule ? 
Who could laugh at the fractured, ruined body of a soldier ? 
Who is so wicked as to amuse himself with the infirmities of ex- 
treme old age ? or to find subject for humour in the weakness of 
a perishing, dissolving body ? Who is there that does not feel 
himself disposed to overlook the little peculiarities of the truly 
great and wise, and to throw a veil over that ridicule which they 
have redeemed by the magnitude of their talents, and the splendour 
of their virtues ? Who ever thinks of turning into ridicule our 
great and ardent hope of a world to come ? Whenever the man 
of humour meddles with these things, he is astonished to find, that 
in all the great feelings of their nature the mass of mankind al- 
ways think and act aright; — that they are ready enough to laugh 
— -but that they are quite as ready to drive away with indignation 
and contempt, the light fool who comes with the feather of wit to 
crumble the bulwarks of truth, and to beat down the Temples of 
God! 

So, then, this turns out to be the nature of humour ; that it is 
incongruity which creates surprise, and only surprise. Try the 
most notorious and classical instances of humour by this rule, and 
you will find it succeed. If you find incongruities which create 
surprise and are not humourous, it is always, I believe, because 
they are accompanied with some other feeling — emotion, or an 
interesting train of thought, beside surprise. Find an incon- 



BUFFOONERY. 231 

gruity which creates surprise, and surprise only, and, if it be not 
humourous, I am, what I very often am, completely wrong ; and 
this theory is what theories very often are, unfounded in fact. 

Most men, I observe, are of opinion that humour is entirely 
confined to character; — and if you choose to confine the word hu- 
mour to those instances of the ridiculous which are excited by 
character, you may do so if you please — this is not worth con- 
tending. All that I wish to show is, that this species of feeling is 
produced by something beside character ; and if you allow it to 
be the same feeling, I am satisfied, and you may call it by what 
name you please. One of the most laughable scenes I ever saw 
in my life was, the complete overturning of a very large table, 
with all the dinner upon it — which I believe one or two gentlemen 
in this room remember as well as myself. What of character is 
there in seeing a roasted turkey sprawling on the floor ? or ducks 
lying in different parts of the room, covered with trembling frag- 
ments of jelly ? It is impossible to avoid laughing at such ab- 
surdities, because the incongruities they involve are so very great ; 
though they have no more to do with character than they have 
with chemistry. A thousand little circumstances happen every 
day which excite violent laughter, but have no sort of reference to 
character. The laughter is excited by throwing inanimate objects 
into strange and incongruous positions. Now, I am quite unable, 
by attending to what passes in my own mind, to say, that these 
classes of sensations are not alike : they may differ in degree, for 
the incongruous observed of things living, is always more striking 
than the incongruous observed in things inanimate ; but there is 
an incongruous not observable in character, which produces the 
feeling of humour. 



BUFFOONERY AND ITS ASSOCIATES. 

Buffoonery is voluntary incongruity. To play the buffoon, 
is to counterfeit some peculiarity incongruous enough to excite 
laughter: not incongruities of mind, for this is a humour of a 
higher class, and constitutes comic acting ; but incongruities of 
body — imitating a drunken man, or a clown, or a person with a 
hunched back, or puffing out the cheeks as the lower sort of 
comic actors do open the stage. Buffoonery is general in its imi- 



232 IRISH BULLS. 

tations ; mimicry is particular, and seizes on the incongruous in 
individual characters. I think we must say, that mimicry is al- 
ways employed upon defects : a good voice, a gentleman-like ap- 
pearance, and rational, agreeable manners, can never be the sub- 
ject of mimicry; — they may be exactly represented and imitated, 
but nobody would call this mimicry, as the word always means 
the representation of defects. Parody is the adaptation of the 
same thoughts to other subjects. Burlesque is that species of 
parody, or adaptation of thoughts to other subjects, which is in- 
tended to make the original ridiculous. Pope has parodied several 
Odes of Horace ; Johnson has parodied Juvenal ; Cervantes has 
burlesqued the old romances. 



BULLS. 



A bull — which must by no means be passed over in this re- 
capitulation of the family of wit and humour — a bull is exactly 
the counterpart of a witticism : for as wit discovers real relations 
that are not apparent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not 
real. The pleasure arising from bulls, proceeds from our surprise 
at suddenly discovering two things to be dissimilar in which a 
resemblance might have been suspected. The same doctrine will 
apply to wit and bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connec- 
tion or relation between actions, in which duller understandings 
discover none ; and practical bulls originate from an apparent 
relation between two actions which more correct understandings 
immediately perceive to have none at all. In the late rebellion 
in Ireland, the rebels, who had conceived a high degree of indig- 
nation against some great banker, passed a resolution that they 
would burn his notes; — which they accordingly did, with great 
assiduity ; forgetting, that in burning his notes they were destroy- 
ing his debts, and that for every note which went into the names, 
a correspondent value went into the banker's pocket. A gentle- 
man, in speaking of a nobleman's wife, of great rank and fortune, 
lamented very much that she had no children. A medical gentle- 
man who was present observed, that to have no children was a 
great misfortune, but he thought he had remarked it was heredi- 
tary in some families. Take any instances of this branch of the 



DANGERS OF WIT. 233 

ridiculous, and you will always find an apparent relation of ideas 
leading to a complete inconsistency. 



CHARADES. 

I shall say nothing of charades, and such sorts of unpardon- 
able trumpery : if charades are made at all, they should be made 
without benefit of clergy, the offender should instantly be hurried 
off to execution, and be cut off in the middle of his dullness, with- 
out being allowed to explain to the executioner why his first is 
like his second, or what is the resemblance between his fourth and 
his ninth. 



DANGERS AND ADVANTAGES OF WIT. 

I wish, after all I have said about wit and humour, I could sat- 
sify myself of their good effects upon the character and disposition ; 
but I am convinced the probable tendency of both is, to corrupt 
the understanding and the heart. I am not speaking of wit where 
it is kept down by more serious qualities of mind, and thrown into 
the background of the picture ; but where it stands out boldly and 
emphatically, and is evidently the master quality in any particular 
mind. Professed wits, though they are generally courted for the 
amusement they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities they 
possess. The habit of seeing things in a witty point of view, in- 
creases and makes incursions from its own proper regions, upon 
principles and opinions which are ever held sacred by the wise 
and good. A witty man is a dramatic performer ; in process of 
time, he can no more exist without applause, than he can exist 
without air ; if his audience be small, or if they are inattentive, or 
if a new wit defrauds him of any portion of his admiration, it is all 
over with him — he sickens, and is extinguished. The applauses 
of the theatre on which he performs are so essential to him that 
he must obtain them at the expense of decency, friendship, and 
good feeling. It must always be probable, too, that a mere wit is 
a person of light and frivolous understanding. I lis business is not to 
discover relations of ideas that are useful^ and have a real influence 
upon life, but to discover the more trifling relations which are only 
amusing ; he never looks at things with the naked eye of common 



234 AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN. 

sense, but is always gazing at the world through a Claude Lor- 
raine glass — discovering a thousand appearances which are created 
only by the instrument of inspection, and covering every object 
with factitious and unnatural colours. In short, the- character of a 
mere wit it is impossible to consider as very amiable, very respec- 
table, or very safe. So far the world, in judging of wit where it 
has swallowed up all other qualities, judge aright ; but I doubt if 
they are sufficiently indulgent to this faculty where it exists in a 
lesser degree, and as one out of many other ingredients of the un- 
derstanding. There is an association in men's minds between dull- 
ness and wisdom, amusement and folly, which has a very powerful 
influence hi decision upon character, and is not overcome without 
considerable difficulty. The reason is, that the outward signs of a 
dull man and a wise man are the same, and so are the outward 
signs of a frivolous man and a witty man ; and we are not to ex- 
pect that the majority will be disposed to look to much more than 
the outward sign. I believe the fact to be, that wit is very seldom 
the only eminent quality which resides in the mind of any man ; it 
is commonly accompanied by many other talents of every descrip- 
tion, and ought to be considered as a strong evidence of a fertile 
and superior understanding. Almost all the great poets, orators, 
and statesmen of all times have been witty. Caesar, Alexander, 
Aristotle, Descartes, and Lord Bacon, were witty men ; so were 
Cicero, Shakespeare, Demosthenes, Boileau, Pope, Dryden, Fon- 
tenelle, Jonson, Waller, Cowley, Solon, Socrates, Dr. Johnson, and 
almost every man who has made a distinguished figure in the 
House of Commons. I have talked of the danger of wit ; I do not 
mean by that to enter into commonplace declamation against facul- 
ties because they are dangerous; — wit is dangerous, eloquence is 
dangerous, a talent for observation is dangerous, every thing is 
dangerous that has efficacy and vigour for its characteristics ; 
nothing is safe but mediocrity. The business is, in conducting the 
understanding well, to risk something ; to aim at uniting things 
that are commonly incompatible. The meaning of an extraordinary 
man is, that he is eight men, not one man ; that he has as much 
wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit ; 
that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human 
beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably 
ruined. But when wit is combined with sense and information ; 



SUBLIMITY. 235 

when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong prin- 
ciple ; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise 
it, who can be witty and something much better than witty, who 
loves honour, justice, decency, good nature, morality, and religion, 
ten thousand times better than wit; — wit is then a beautiful and 
delightful part of our nature. There is no more interesting spec- 
tacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of 
men ; than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing dignity, un- 
freezing coldness — teaching age, and care, and pain, to smile — 
extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charm- 
ing even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it pen- 
etrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually 
bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine 
and oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining countenance. 
Genuine and innocent wit like this, is surely the flavour of the 
mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support 
his life by tasteless food ; but God has given us wit, and flavour, 
and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of 
man's pilgrimage, and to " charm his pained steps over the burning 
marie." 



INHERENT SUBLIMITY.* 

It is very true what Mr. Alison says, that " there are many 
sensations universally called sublime, which association may make 
otherwise." I admit readily, that a fortuitous connection of 
thought can make it otherwise than sublime ; but the question is, 
Did it receive from nature the character of sublime? does any 
thing receive from nature the character of sublime, or the char- 
acter of beautiful? and would anything perpetually display, and 
constantly preserve such a character, if no accident intervened to 
raise up a contrary association ? Certainty on such subjects can 
not be attained ; but I, for one, strongly believe in the affirmative 
of the question — that Nature speaks to the mind of man imme- 
diately in beautiful and sublime language ; that she astonishes him 
with magnitude, appals him with darkness, cheers him with splen- 
dour, soothes him with harmony, captivates him with emotion, en- 
chants him with fame ; she never intended man should walk among 
* From the Essay on Taste. 



236 TASTE. 

her flowers, and her fields, and her streams, unmoved ; nor did 
she rear the strength of the hills hi vain, or mean that we should 
look with a stupid heart on the wild glory of the torrent, bursting 
from the darkness of the forest, and dashing over the crumbling 
rock. I would as soon deny hardness, or softness, or figure, to be 
qualities of matter, as I would deny beauty or sublimity to belong 
to its qualities. 

Every man is as good a judge of a question like this, as the 
ablest metaphysician. Walk in the fields in one of the mornings 
of May, and if you carry with you a mind unpolluted with harm, 
watch how it is impressed. You are delighted with the beauty of 
colours ; are not those colours beautiful ? You breathe vegetable 
fragrance ; is not that fragrance grateful ? You see the sun rising 
from behind a mountain, and the heavens painted with light ; is 
not that renewal of the light of the morning sublime ? You reject 
all obvious reasons, and say that these things are beautiful and 
sublime because the accidents of life have made them so; — I say 
they are beautiful and sublime, because God has made them 
so ! that it is the original, indelible character impressed upon them 
by Him, who has opened these sources of simple pleasure, to calm, 
perhaps, the perturbations of sense, and to make us love that joy 
which is purchased without giving pain to another man's heart, 
and without entailing reproach upon our own. 



CEKTAINTY OF TASTE.^ 

The progress of good taste, however, though it is certain and 
irresistible, is slow. Mistaken pleasantry, false ornament, and 
affected conceit, perish by the discriminating hand of time, that lifts 
up from the dust of oblivion, the grand and simple efforts of genius. 
Title, rank, prejudice, party, artifice, and a thousand disturbing 
forces, are always at work to confer unmerited fame ; but every re- 
curring year contributes its remedy to these infringements on jus- 
tice and good sense. The breath of living acclamation can not 
reach the ages which are to come : the judges and the judged are 
no more ; passion is extinguished ; party is forgotten ; and the 
mild yet inflexible decisions of taste, will receive nothing, as the 
price of praise, but the solid exertions of superior talent. Justice 
=*From the same. 



THE BEAUTIFUL. 287 

is pleasant, even when she destroys. It is a grateful homage to 
common sense, to see those productions hastening to that oblivion, 
in their progress to which they should never have been retarded. 
But it is much more pleasant to witness the power of taste in the 
work of preservation and lasting praise; — to think that, in these 
fleeting and evanescent feelings of the beautiful and the sublime, 
men have discovered something as fixed and as positive, as if they 
were measuring the flow of the tides, or weighing the stones on 
which they tread; — to think that there lives not, in the civilized 
world, a being who knows he has a mind, and who knows not that 
Virgil and Homer have written, that RafFaelle has painted, and 
that Tully has spoken. Intrenched in these everlasting bulwarks 
against barbarism, Taste points out to the races of men, as they 
spring up in the order of time, on what path they shall guide the 
labours of the human spirit. Here she is safe ; hence she never 
can be driven, while one atom of matter clings to another, and till 
man, with all his wonderful system of feeling and thought, is called 
away to Him who is the great Author of all that is beautiful, and 
all that is sublime, and all that is good ! 



INCENTIVES OF THE BEAUTIFUL.* 

What are half the crimes in the world committed for ? What 
brings into action the best virtues ? The desire of possessing. 
Of possessing what? — not mere money, but every species of the 
beautiful which money can purchase. A man lies hid in a little, 
dirty, smoky room for twenty years of his life, and sums up as 
many columns of figures as would reach round half the earth, if 
they were laid at length ; he gets rich ; what does he do with his 
riches ? He buys a largo, well-proportioned house : in the ar- 
rangement of his furniture, he gratifies himself with all the beauty 
which splendid colours, regular figures, and smooth surfaces, can 
convey; he has the beauties of variety and association in his 
grounds: the cup out of which he drinks his tea is adorned with 
beautiful figures ; the chair in which he sits is covered with smooth, 
shining leather; his table-cloth is of the most beautiful damask; 
mirrors reflect the lights from every quarter of the room; pictures 

* From the Lectures on the Beau f iful. — Part II. 



238 THE SABBATH. 

of the best masters feed his eye with all the beauties of imitation. 
A million of human creatures are employed in this country in 
ministering to this feeling of the beautiful. It is only a barbarous, 
ignorant people that can ever be occupied by the necessaries of 
life alone. If to eat, and to drink, and to be warm, were the only 
passions of our minds, we should all be what the lowest of us all 
are at this day. The love of the beautiful calls man to fresh 
exertions, and awakens him to a more noble life ; and the glory 
of it is, that as painters imitate, and poets sing, and statuaries 
carve, and architects rear up the gorgeous trophies of their skill — 
as everything becomes beautiful, and orderly, and magnificent — the 
activity of the mind rises to still greater, and to better objects. 
The principles of justice are sought out ; the powers of the ruler, 
and the rights of the subject, are fixed; man advances to the 
enjoyment of rational liberty, and to the establishment of those 
great moral laws, which God has written in our hearts, to regulate 
the destinies of the world. 



SONNET ON THE SABBATH.^ 

The first reason, then, why poetry is beautiful, is, because it 
describes natural objects, or moral feelings, which are themselves 
beautiful. For an example, I will read to you a beautiful sonnet 
of Dr. Leyden's upon the Sabbath morning, which has never been 
printed : — 

" With silent awe I hail the sacred morn, 

Which slowly wakes while all the fields are still ; 
A soothing calm on every breeze is borne, 

A graver murmur gurgles from the rill, 

And Echo answers softer from the hill, 
And softer sings the linnet from the thorn, 

The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill. 
Hail, light serene ! hail, sacred Sabbath morn ! 
The rooks float silent by, in airy drove ; 

The sun, a placid yellow lustre shows ; 
The gales, that lately sighed along the grove, 

Have hushed their downy wings in dead repose 
The hov'ring rack of clouds forget to move : — 

So smiled the day when the first morn arose !" 

* This and the following passage is from the Lecture on the Beautiful. — 
Part III. 



HONESTY. 239 

Now, there is not a single image introduced into this very beautiful 
sonnet, which is not of itself beautiful ; the soothing calm of the 
breeze, the noise of the rill, the song of the linnet, the hovering 
rack of clouds, and the airy drove of rooks floating by, are all 
objects that would be beautiful in nature, and, of course, are so in 
poetry. The notion that the whole appearance of the world is 
more calm and composed on the Sabbath, and that its sanctity is 
felt in the whole creation, is unusually beautiful and poetical. 
There is a pleasure in imitation — this is exactly a picture of what 
a beautiful placid morning is, and we are delighted to see it so 
well represented. 



A BEAUTIFUL ACTION. 

A London merchant, who, I believe, is still alive, while he was 
I staying in the country with a friend, happened to mention that he 
intended, the next year, to buy a ticket in the lottery ; his friend 
desired he would buy one for him at the same time, which, of 
course, was very willingly agreed to. The conversation dropped, 
the ticket never arrived, and the whole affair was entirely forgotten, 
when the country gentleman received information that the ticket 
purchased for him by his friend, had come up a prize of twenty 
thousand pounds. Upon his arrival in London, he inquired of his 
friend where he had put the ticket, and why he had not informed 
him that it was purchased. " I bought them both the same day, 
mine and your ticket, and I flung them both into a drawer of my 
bureau, and I never thought of them afterward." " But how do 
you distinguish one ticket from the other? and why am I the 
holder of the fortunate ticket, more than you?" "Why, at the 
time I put them into the, drawer, I put a Utile mark in ink upon 
the ticket which I resolved should be yours; and upon re-opening 
the drawer, I found that the one so marked was the fortunate 
ticket." Now thk action appears (o me perfectly beautiful; it is 
h beau ideal in morals, and gives that calm, vet deep emotion of 
pleasure, which every one so easily receives from the beauty of 
the exterior world. 



240 A SUBLIME EMPEROR. 



AURUNGZEBE.* 



A mixture of wonder and terror almost always excites the 
feeling of the sublime. Extraordinary power generally excites 
the feeling of the sublime by these means — by mixing wonder 
with terror. A person who has never seen anything of the kind 
but a little boat, would think a sloop of eighty tons a goodly and 
somewhat of a grand object, if all her sails were set, and she were 
going gallantly before the wind ; but a first-rate man-of-war would 
sail .over such a sloop, and send her to the bottom, without any 
person on board the man-of-war perceiving that they had encoun- 
tered any obstacle. Such power is wonderful and terrible — there- 
fore, sublime. Everybody possessed of power is an object either 
of awe or sublimity, from a justice of peace up to the Emperor 
Aurungzebe — an object quite as stupendous as the Alps. He 
had thirty-five millions of revenue, in a country where the products 
of the earth are at least six times as cheap as in England : his em- 
pire extended over twenty-five degrees of latitude, and as many of 
longitude : he had put to death above twenty millions of people. I 
should like to know the man who could have looked at Aurungzebe 
without feeling him to the end of his limbs, and in every hair of his 
head ! Such emperors are more sublime than cataracts. I think 
any man would have shivered more at the sight of Aurungzebe, 
than at the sight of the two rivers which meet at the Blue Moun- 
tains in America, and, bursting through the whole breadth of the 
rocks, roll their victorious and united waters to the Eastern Sea. 



SUBLIMITY OF ECONOMY. 

I am going to say rather an odd tiling, but I can not help think- 
ing that the severe and rigid economy of a man in distress, has 
something in it very sublime, especially if it be endured for any 
length of time serenely and in silence. I remember a very stri- 
king instance of it in a young man, since dead. He was the son of 
a country curate, who had got him a berth on board a man-of-war, 
as midshipman. The poor curate made a great effort for his son ; 
fitted him out well with clothes, and gave him fifty pounds in 

money. The first week, the poor boy lost his chest, clothes, 

77 
=* This and the following passage are from the Lecture on the Sublime. 



INSTINCT. 241 

money, and everything he had in the world. The ship sailed for 
a foreign station ; and his loss was without remedy. He imme- 
diately quitted his mess, ceased to associate with the other midship- 
men, who were the sons of gentlemen ; and for five years, without 
mentioning it to his parents- — who he knew could not assist him 
— or without borrowing a farthing from any human being, without 
a single murmur or complaint, did that poor lad endure the most 
abject and degrading poverty, at a period of life when the feelings 
are most alive to ridicule, and the appetites most prone to indul- 
gence. Now, I confess I am a mighty advocate for the sublimity 
of such long and patient endurance. If you can make the world 
stare and look on, there, you have vanity, or compassion, to sup- 
port you; but to bury all your wretchedness in your own mind — to 
resolve that you will have no man's pity, while you have one effort 
left to procure his respect — to harbour no mean thought in the 
midst of abject poverty, but, at the very time you are surrounded 
by circumstances of humility and depression, to found a spirit of 
modest independence upon the consciousness of having always 
acted well ; this is a sublime, which, though it is found in the shade 
and retirement of life, ought to be held up to the praises of men, 
and to be looked upon as a noble model for imitation. 



INSTINCT AND TALENT.* 

All the wonderful instincts of animals, which, in my humble 
opinion, are proved beyond a doubt, and the belief in which has 
not decreased with the increase of science and investigation — all 
these instincts are given them only for the combination or preser- 
vation of their species. If they had not these instincts, they would 
be swept off the earth in an instant. This bee, thai understands 
architecture so well, is us stupid as a pebblestone, oul of \\U own 
particular business of making honey: and, with all his talents, he 
only exists that boys may oat his labours and poets sing about them. 
Ut puer%8 placeas et declamatio fias. A peasant-girl of ten years 
old puts the whole republic to death with a little smoke; their 
palaces are turned into candle-, and every clergyman's wile makes 
mead-wine of the honey; and there is an end of the glory and 

* This and the following passage arc from the Lecture on the Faculties of 
Animals and of Man. 

11 



242 MIND AND BODY. 

wisdom of the bees ! Whereas, man has talents that have no sort 
of reference to his existence ; and without which, his species might 
remain upon earth in the same safety as if they had them not. 
The bee works at that particular angle which saves most time 
and labour ; and the boasted edifice he is constructing is only for 
his egg: but Somerset House, and Blenheim, and the Louvre, 
have nothing to do with breeding. Epic poems, and Apollo Bel- 
videres, and Venus de Medicis, have nothing to do with living 
and eating. We might have discovered pig-nuts without the 
Royal Society, and gathered acorns without reasoning about curves 
of the ninth order. The immense superfluity of talent given to 
man, which has no bearing upon animal life, which has nothing 
to do with the mere preservation of existence, is one very distin- 
guishing circumstance in this comparison. There is no other 
animal but man to whom mind appears to be given for any other 
purpose than the preservation of body. 



CHANGE OF INSTINCT. 

The most curious instance of a change of instinct is mentioned 
by Darwin. The bees carried over to Barbadoes and the Western 
Isles, ceased to lay up any honey after the first year ; as they 
found it not useful to them. They found the weather so fine and 
materials for making honey so plentiful, that they quitted their 
grave, prudent, and mercantile character, became exceedingly 
profligate and debauched, eat up their capital, resolved to work no 
more, and amused themselves by flying about the sugar-houses, and 
stinging the blacks. The fact is, that by putting animals in differ- 
ent situations, you may change, and even reverse, any of their 
original propensities. Spallanzani brought up an eagle upon bread 
and milk, and fed a dove on raw beef. The circumstances by 
which an animal is surrounded, impel him to do so and so, by the 
changes they produce in his body and mind. Alter those circum- 
stances, and he no longer does as he did before. This, instead of 
disproving the existence of an instinct, only points out the causes 
on which it depends. 



STORY OF AN ELEPHANT. 243 



The artifices of a gentleman pursued by bailiffs, and the artifices 
of an animal pursued for his life, are the same thing — call them 
by what name you please. Of all animals, the most surprising 
stories are told of the docility of elephants. The black people, 
who have the care of them, often go away, leaving them chained 
to a stake, and place near them their young children, as if under 
their care : the elephant allows the little creature to crawl as far 
as its trunk can reach, and then gently takes the young master up, 
and places him more within his own control. Every one knows 
the old story of the tailor and the elephant, which, if it be not true, 
at least shows the opinion the Orientals, who know the animal 
well, entertain of his sagacity. An eastern tailor to the court 
was making a magnificent doublet for a bashaw of nine tails, and 
covering it, after the manner of eastern doublets, with gold, silver, 
and every species of metallic magnificence. As he was busying 
himself on this momentous occasion, there passed by, to the pools 
of water, one of the royal elephants, about the size of a broad- 
wheeled wagon, rich in ivory teeth, and shaking, with its ponder- 
ous tread, the tailor's shop to its remotest thimble. As he passed 
near the window, the elephant happened to look in; the tailor 
lifted up his eyes, perceived the proboscis of the elephant near him, 
and, being seized with a fit of facetiousiless, pricked the animal 
with his needle ; the mass of matter immediately retired, stalked 
away to the pool, filled his trunk full of muddy water, and, return- 
ing to the shop, overwhelmed the artisan and his doublet with the 
dirty effects of his vengeance. 



LONGEVITY AND WISDOM.* 

TnE wisdom of a man is made up of what he observes, and 
av hat others observe for him ; and of course the sum of what lie 
can acquire must principally depend upon the time in which he can 
acquire it. All that we add to our knowledge is not an increase, 
by that exact proportion, of all we possess; because we lose some 
things, as we gain others; hut upon the whole, while the body and 
mind remain healthy, an active man increases in intelligence, and 

* From the Lecture on the Faculties of Beasts. 



244 VALUE OF LONGEVITY. 

consequently in power. If we lived seven hundred years instead 
of seventy, we should write better epic poems, build better houses, 
and invent more complicated mechanism, than we do now. I 
should question very much if Mr. Milne could build a bridge so 
well as a gentleman who had engaged in that occupation for seven 
centuries : and if I had had only two hundred years' experience in 
lecturing on moral philosophy, I am well convinced I should do it 
a little better than I now do. On the contrary, how diminutive 
and absurd all the efforts of man would have been, if the duration 
of his life had only been twenty years, and if he had died of old 
age just at the period when every human being begins to suspect 
that he is the wisest and most extraordinary person that ever did 
exist ! I think it is Helvetius who says, he is quite certain we 
only owe our superiority over the orang-outangs to the greater 
length of life conceded to us ; and that, if our life had been as short 
as theirs, they would have totally defeated us in the competition 
for nuts and ripe blackberries. I can hardly agree to this extrav- 
agant statement ; but I think, in a life of twenty years the efforts 
of the human mind would have been so considerably lowered, that 
we might probably have thought Helvetius a good philosopher, and 
admired his skeptical absurdities as some of the greatest efforts of 
the human understanding. Sir Richard Blackmore would have 
been our greatest poet ; our wit would have been Dutch ; our 
faith, French ; the Hottentots would have given us the model for 
manners, and the Turks for government ; and we might probably 
have been such miserable reasoners respecting the sacred truths 
of religion, that we should have thought they wanted the support 
of a puny and childish jealousy of the poor beasts that perish. His 
gregarious nature is another cause of man's superiority over all 
other animals. A lion lies under a hole in a rock ; and if any 
other lion happen to pass by, they fight. jSTow, whoever gets a 
habit of lying under a hole in a rock, and fighting with every gen- 
tleman who passes near him, can not possibly make any progress. 
Every man's understanding and acquirements, how great and ex- 
tensive soever they may appear, are made up from the contribu- 
tions of his friends and companions. You spend your morning in 
learning from Hume what happened at particular periods of your 
own history : you dine where some man tells you what he has ob- 
served in the East Indies, and another discourses of brown sugar 



SHYNESS. 245 

and Jamaica. It is from these perpetual rills of knowledge, that 
you refresh yourself, and become strong and healthy as you are. 
If lions would consort together, and growl out the observations 
they have made, about killing sheep and shepherds, the most likely 
places for catching a calf grazing, and so forth, they could not fail 
to improve ; because they would be actuated by such a wide range 
of observation, and operating by the joint force of so many minds. 
It may be said, that the gregarious spirit in man may proceed 
from his wisdom ; and not his wisdom from his gregarious spirit. 
This I should doubt. It appears to be an original principle in 
some animals, and not in others ; and is a quality given to some 
to better their condition, as swiftness or strength is given to 
others. The tiger lives alone — bulls and cows do not; yet, a 
tiger is as wise an animal as a bull. A wild boar lives with the 
herd till he comes of age, which he does at three years, and then 
quits the herd and lives alone. There is a solitary species of bee, 
and there is a gregarious bee. Whether an animal should herd 
or not, seems to be as much a provision of nature, as whether it 
should crawl, creep, or fly. 



shyness; 



The most curious offspring of shame, is shyness ; — a word al- 
ways used, I fancy, in a bad sense, to signify misplaced shame ; for 
a person who felt only diffident, exactly in proportion as he ought, 
would never be called shy. But a shy person feels more shame, 
than it is graceful, or proper, he should feel ; generally, either from 
ignorance or pride. A young man, in making his first entrance 
into society, is so ignorant as to imagine he is the object of univer- 
sal attention; and that everything he does is subject to the mosl 
rigid criticism. Of course, under such a supposition, he is shy 
and embarrassed: he regains his case, as he becomes aware of his 
insignificance. An excessive jealousy of reputation, is the very 
frequenl parenl of shyness, and make- us all afraid of saying and 
doing, what we might say and do, with the utmost propriety and 
grace. We are afraid of hazarding anything; and the game 
stands still, because no man will venture any stake: whereas, the 

* This and the next are from the Lecture of the Evil Affections. 



246 SHAME. 

object of living together, is not security only, but enjoyment. Both 
objects are promoted by a moderate dread of shame ; both de- 
stroyed by that passion, when it amounts to shyness; — for a shy 
person not only feels pain, and gives pain ; but, what is worse, he 
incurs blame, for a want of that rational and manly confidence, 
which is so useful to those who possess it, and so pleasant to those 
who witness it. I am severe against shyness, because it looks 
like a virtue without being a virtue ; and because it gives us false 
notions of what the real virtue is. I admit that it is sometimes an 
affair of body, rather than of mind ; that where a person wishes to 
say what he knows will be received with favour, he cannot com- 
mand himself enough to do it. But this is merely the effect of 
habit, where the cause that created the habit has for a moment 
ceased. "When the feelings respecting shame are disciplined by 
good sense, and commerce with the world, to a fair medium, the 
body will soon learn to obey the decisions of the understanding. 

Nor let any young man imagine (however it may flatter the 
vanity of those who perceive it), that there can be anything worthy 
of a man, in faltering, and tripping, and stammering, and looking 
like a fool, and acting like a clown. A silly college pedant be- 
lieves that this highest of all the virtues, consists in the shame of 
the body ; in losing the ease and possession of a gentleman ; in 
turning red ; and tumbling down ; in saying this thing, when you 
mean that ; hi overturning everybody within your reach, out of 
pure bashfulness ; and in a general stupidity and ungainliness, and 
confusion of limb, and thought, and motion. But that dread of 
shame, which virtue and wisdom teach, is, to act so, from the cra- 
dle to the tomb, that no man can cast upon you the shadow of re- 
proach ; not to swerve on this side for wealth, or on that side for 
favour ; but to go on speaking truly, and acting justly ; no man's 
oppressor, and no man's sycophant and slave. This is the shame 
of the soul ; and these are the blushes of the inward man ; which 
are worth all the distortions of the body, and all the crimson of the 
face. 



USES OF THE EVIL AFFECTIONS. 

It appears, then, from this enumeration of the ungrateful pas- 
sions, which lead men to act from feelings of aversion, that they are 



GOOD IN ILL. 247 

all referable to the memory of evil, the actual sensation, the future 
anticipation of it, or the resentment which any one of these notions 
is apt to excite. The remembrance of past evils, produces melan- 
choly : the sensation of present evils, if they be referred to the 
body, pain ; if to the mind, grief. Envy, hatred, and malice, are 
all modifications of resentment, differing in the causes which have 
excited that resentment, as well as in the degree in which it is en- 
tertained. Shame is that particular species of grief, which pro- 
ceeds from losing the esteem of our fellow-creatures ; fear, the an- 
ticipation of future evils. This is the catalogue of human miseries 
and pains ; and it is plain why they have been added to our nature. 
By the miseries of the body, man is controlled within his proper 
sphere, and learns what manner of life it was intended he should 
lead : fear and suspicion are given to guard him from harm : re- 
sentment, to punish those who inflict it ; and by punishment, to de- 
ter them. By the pain of inactivity, we are driven to exertion : 
by the dread of shame, to labour for esteem. But all these preg- 
nant and productive feelings are poured into the heart of man, not 
with anything that has the air of human moderation — not with a 
measure that looks like precision and adjustment — but wildly, lav- 
ishly, and in excess. Providence only impels ; it makes us start 
up from the earth, and do something ; but whether that something 
shall be good or evil, is the arduous decision which that Provi- 
dence has left to us. You cannot sit quietly till the torch is held 
up to your cottage, and the dagger to your throat : if you could, 
this scene of things would not long be what it now is. The solemn 
feeling which rises up in you at such times, is as much the work 
of God, as the splendour of the lightning is his work ; but that 
feeling may degenerate into the fury of a savage, or be disciplined 
into the rational opposition of a wise and a good man. You must 
be affected by the distinctions of your fellow-creatures — you can- 
not help it; but you may envy those distinctions, or 3011 may em- 
ulate them. The dread of shame may enervate you for every 
manly exertion, or be the vigilant guardian of purity and inno- 
cence. In a strong mind, fear grows up into cautions sagacity; 
grief, into amiable tenderness. Without the noble toil of moral 
education, the one is abject cowardice, the other eternal gloom; 
therefore, there is the good, and there i- the evil! Every man's 
destiny is in his own hands. Nature has given ua those beginnings, 



248 HABIT. 

which are the elements of the foulest vices, and the seeds of every 
sweet and immortal virtue : but though Nature has given you the 
liberty to choose, she has terrified you by her punishments, and 
lured you by her rewards, to choose aright ; for she has not only 
taken care that envy, and cowardice, and melancholy, and revenge, 
shall carry with them their own curse — but she has rewarded 
emulation, courage, patience, cheerfulness, and dignity, with that 
feeling of calm pleasure, which makes it the highest act of human 
wisdom to labour for their attainment. 



PAST HAPPINESS.* 

The memory of past good, and the memory of past evil, are 
both without a specific name in our language ; though it should 
seem, that they require one, as much as hope or fear — to which, 
in point of time, they are contrasted. We all know that present 
happiness is very materially affected by happiness in prospect : 
but, perhaps, it is not enough urged as a motive for benev- 
olence. 

Mankind are always happier for having been happy ; so that 
if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty 
years hence by the memory of it. A childhood passed with a 
due mixture of rational indulgence, under fond and wise parents, 
diffuses over the whole of life, a feeling of calm pleasure ; and, 
in extreme old age, is the very last remembrance which time can 
erase from the mind of man. No enjoyment, however inconsider- 
able, is confined to the present moment. A man is the happier 
for life, from having made once an agreeable tour, or lived for 
any length of time with pleasant people, or enjoyed any consider- 
able interval of innocent pleasure : and it is most probably the 
recollection of their past pleasures, which contributes to render 
old men so inattentive to the scenes before them; and carries 
them back to a world that is past, and to scenes never to be 
renewed again. 



THE FORCE OF HABIT. HOBBES AND HIS PIPE.| 

Habits may be divided into active and passive; — those things 
which we do by an act of the will, and those things which we 
* Erom the Lecture on the Benevolent Affections, 
t Erom the Lecture on Habit, Part I. 



HOBBES AND HIS PIPE. 249 

suffer by the agency of some external power. I begin with the 
active habits ; and, after stating a few of the most familiar of 
them, I will shortly analyze the examples, in order to show that 
they are merely referable to association. It may be as well, per- 
haps to give a specimen of the life of a man whose existence was, 
at last, entirely dependent upon the habits he had contracted : it is 
a fair picture of the dominion which habit establishes over us, at 
the close of life. " The professed rule of Mr. Hobbes," says Dr. 
White Kennet in his Memoirs of the Cavendish family, " was to 
dedicate the morning to exercise, and the evening to study. At 
his first rising, he walked out, and climbed up a hill: if the 
weather was not dry, he made a point of fatiguing himself within 
doors, so as to perspire ; remarking constantly, that an old man 
had more moisture than heat ; and by such motion, heat was to be 
acquired, and moisture expelled. After this, the philosopher took 
a very comfortable breakfast, and then went round the lodgings to 
wait upon the earl, the countess, the children, and any consider- 
able strangers ; paying some short addresses to all of them. He 
kept these rounds till about twelve o'clock, when he had a little 
dinner provided for him, which he eat always by himself, without 
ceremony. Soon after dinner, he retired to his study, and had his 
candle, with ten or twelve pipes of tobacco, laid by him ; then, 
shutting the door, he fell to smoking, thinking, and writing, for 
several hours. He could never endure to be left in an empty 
house ; whenever the earl removed, he would go along with him, 
even to his last stage, from Chatsworth to Hardwick. This was 
the constant tenor of his life, from which he never varied, no, not 
a moment, nor an atom." 

This is the picture of a man whose life appears to have been 
entirely regulated by the past ; who did a thing because he had 
done it ; who, so far as bodily actions were concerned, could 
hardly be said to have any fresh motives; but was impelled by 
one regular set of volitions, constantly recurring at fixed periods. 
Now, take any one of his habits, and examine its progress; it will 
afford a natural history of this law of 1 1 1 < 5 mind, and will show 
what circumstances in that law are most worthy of observation. 

He smoked : how did this begin? It might have begun any 
how. lie was staying, perhaps, at some house where smoking 
was in fashion, and began to smoke out of compliance with the 

11* 



250 SMOKING. 

humours of other persons. At first, he thought it unpleasant; 
and as all the expirations and inspirations were new and difficult, 
it required considerable attention ; and at the close of the evening 
he could have distinctly recollected, if he had tried to do so, that 
his mind had been employed in thinking how he was to manage 
and manoeuvre the pipe. The practice goes on ; the disgust 
vanishes ; much less attention is necessary to smoke well : in a 
few days the association is formed ; the moment the cloth is taken 
away after supper, the idea of smoking occurs : if any accident 
happen to prevent it, a slight pain is felt in consequence ; it seems 
as if tilings did not go on in their regular track, and some con- 
fusion had crept into the arrangements of the evening. As the 
association goes on, it gathers strength from the circumstances 
connected with it ; from the mirth and conversation with which it 
is joined : at last, after a lapse of years, we see the philosopher of 
Malmsbury advanced from one, to one dozen of pipes ; so perfect 
in all the tactics of a smoker, so dexterous in all the manual of 
his dirty recreation, that he would fill, light, and smoke out his 
pipe, without the slightest remembrance of what he had been 
doing, or the most minute interruption to any immoral, irreligious, 
or unmathematical track of thought, in which he happened to be 
engaged : but we must not forget, that though his amusement occu- 
pied him so little, and was passed over with such a small share of 
his attention, the want of it would have occupied him so much, 
that he could have clone nothing without it ; all his speculations 
would have been at an end, and without his twelve pipes he might 
have been a friend to devotion, to freedom, or anything else 
which, in the customary tenor of his thoughts, he certainly was 
not. The phenomenon observable here is, that the physical taste 
lost its effect ; that which was nauseous ceased to be so. Next, 
ihe habit began with a considerable difficulty of bodily action, and 
with a full attention of the mind to what was passing. It was not 
easy to smoke, and the philosopher was compelled to be careful, 
in order to do it properly ; but as the habit increased, he indulged 
in it with such little attention of mind or exertion of body, that 
he did it without knowing he did it. Lastly, any interruption 
of the habit would have occasioned to him the greatest un- 
easiness. 



PERIODICAL HABITS. 251 

THE ORBIT OF A HABIT.* 

The period of time in which a habit renews its action, or (if I 
may be allowed the expression) the orbit of a habit, is of very dif- 
ferent dimensions. We may have a habit of shrugging up the 
shoulders every half-hour; or, of eating three eggs every morning; 
or, of dining at a club once a month ; or, of going down to see a 
relation once a year : but it is difficult to conceive any habit form- 
ing itself for a period greater than a year. I can easily conceive 
that a person who set off on every 1st of June, to pay a visit, 
might have the force of habit added to his other inducements, and 
go, partly because he loved the persons, partly because he had 
done it before ; but is it easy to believe that there is a habit of 
doing anything every other year? or, how very ridiculous it 
would sound for two persons to say. " We agreed a long time 
ago to dine together every Bissextile, or leap-year, and it is now 
grown into a perfect habit!" This limitation of habits to the 
period of a year — which I by no means lay any great stress 
upon, but which has some degree of truth in it — depends 
somewhat upon the revolution of names and appearances. To 
do anything the first day of a month, or on one particular day 
every year, is to strengthen a habit by the recurrence of names 
or seasons ; but if an action be performed every third or fourth 
year, the same name and the same appearances have occurred, 
without being connected with the same deed, and therefore the 
habit is impaired. 



SUPERIORITY TO HABIT. 

Men aware of the power of habit, escape its influence; and 
therefore, it is among the most trite principles of education to dis- 
cover the particular habits to which we are exposed by situation 
and profession; and, when they are discovered, to resist them. 
Without any intentional efforts to resist professional habits, they 
are unconsciously resisted by the magnitude and variety pf some 
men's minds; and by the liberal pursuits which they contrive to 
connect wilh their professions. There is an effect of custom and 
habit to which we are all extremely indebted, and that is, that it 

* This and the following passages are from the Lectures on Habit, Part II, 



252 ABOVE HABIT. 

regulates everything which nothing else regulates, where there is 
no propriety, and no duty, to be consulted. The reference is al- 
ways to habit — in dress, in ceremony, in equipage, in all the cir- 
cumstances of life, where almost any conduct would be virtuous, a 
compliance with custom is the only conduct that is wise, and a man 
of sense is rather pleased that the public legislate for him on points 
where choice would neither be easy nor useful. It is a strong 
mark of a good understanding, to allow custom an easy empire on 
these occasions. It is a much surer mark of talent, that men 
should rise above the influence of habit, and be better and greater 
than that to which the circumstances of their lives, or the charac- 
ter of their age, would appear to doom them. This is the reason 
why we admire men, who, born in poverty, and accustomed to 
objects of sense, have been able to conceive the dignity, the value, 
and the pleasure of intellectual gratification ; who, deviating from 
every model they had seen, and guided only by their inward light, 
have steadily, and successfully, pursued the path of virtuous fame. 
By this subjugation of habitual thoughts, and escape from habitual 
objects, Bacon the friar, Czar Peter, Lord Verulam, and all great 
men, in law and in arts, have preceded the ages in which they 
lived, and become the beacons of future times. The mass of 
men, say whatever is said, do whatever is done, think whatever is 
thought, and can not easily conceive anything greater and better 
than what is already created. But, in the grossest period of 
monastic ignorance, Bacon saw that the whole art of war might 
be changed by the invention of gunpowder ; the Czar pulled down 
a nation habitually victorious, roused and elevated a people habit- 
ually stupid and depressed : Lord Yerulam looked upon his own 
times with the same cool estrangement from the influence of habit, 
as if he were contemplating a nation of the ancient world ; and 
was so little imposed upon by the imperfect philosophy which then 
prevailed, that he effected that entire revolution in physical rea- 
soning, by which we are all benefited to the present hour. Such 
victories over present objects— such power of reflecting, where 
attention is not stimulated by novelties — are generally great 
triumphs of the human understanding, and decisive proofs of its 
vigour and excellence, in every individual instance where they 
are found. Whoever is learned in an ignorant age ; whoever is 
liberal in a bigoted age ; whoever is temperate and respectable 



THE HABIT OF VIRTUE. 253 

in a licentious age ; whoever is elegant and enlarged in his views, 
where his profession chains him down to technical rules and 
narrow limits ; whoever has gained any good which habit opposes, 
or avoided any evil which habit might induce — that man has 
vindicated the dignity and the power of his mind, by the fairest of 
all tests — by doing what the mass of mankind cannot do. 



EFFECT OF HABIT. 

A beautiful effect of habit is, that it endows with preternatural 
strength every quality of the mind or heart which it calls into 
more than ordinary action. If protection is wanted, men are 
ready, long habituated to the fear of death. If gentleness and 
benevolence are wanted to lessen the miseries of life, women are 
habitually gentle and benevolent. If patient industry, you have 
it in the laborer, and the mechanic. What but the power of habit, 
has given to us the advantage of those fine legal understandings, 
that have gradually formed the system of law in this country ? 
How are our naval victories gained, but by habitual character, 
skill, and courage ? Whence the effusions of eloquence every day 
to be witnessed in the senate, but by that intrepidity, self-posses- 
sion, and command of words and images, which habit only can 
confer? Fresh, youthful, untaught nature can never do such 
things as these. It is nature in its manhood, instructed by failure, 
fortified by precedent, confirmed by success, riveted by habit, and 
carried to a pitch of glory, by intense adhesion to one object, 
which, with all the primary efforts of its rude vigour, it never 
could have reached ; diminishing the pleasure of vice, and strength- 
enin£ the habit of virtue. 



THE PASSIONS. 

The passions are in morals, what motion is in physics : they 
create, preserve, and animate ; and without them, all would be 
silence and death. Avarice guides men across the deserts of the 
ocean ; pride covers the earth with trophies, and mausoleums, and 
pyramids ; love turns men from their savage rudeness ; ambition 
shakes the very foundations of kingdoms. By the love of glory, 
weak nations swell into magnitude and strength. Whatever there 



254 GREAT PASSIONS. 

is of terrible, whatever there is of beautiful in human events, all 
that shakes the soul to and fro, and is remembered while thought 
and "flesh cling together — all these have their origin from the pas- 
sions. As it is only in storms, and when their coming waters are 
driven up into the air, that we catch a sight of the depths of the 
sea, it is only in the season of perturbation that we have a glimpse 
of the real internal nature of man. It is then only, that the might 
of these eruptions shaking his frame, dissipates all the feeble cov- 
erings of opinion, and rends in pieces that cobweb veil, with which 
fashion hides the feelings of the heart. It is then only that 
Nature speaks her genuine feelings ; and, as at the last night of 
Troy, when Yenus illumined the darkness, iEneas saw the gods 
themselves at work — so may we, when the blaze of passion is 
flung upon man's nature, mark in him the signs of a celestial 
origin, and tremble at the invisible agents of God ! 

Look at great men in critical and perilous moments, when every 
cold and little spirit is extinguished: their passions always bring 
them out harmless ; and at the very moment when they seem to 
perish, they emerge into greater glory. Alexander, in the midst 
of his mutinous soldiers ; Frederick of Prussia, combating against 
the armies of three kingdoms ; Cortes breaking in pieces the 
Mexican empire: — their passions led all these great men to fix. 
their attention strongly upon the objects of their desires ; they 
saw them under aspects unknown to, and unseen by common men, 
and which enabled them to conceive and execute those hardy en- 
terprises, deemed rash and foolish, till their wisdom was established 
by their success. It is in fact the great passions alone which 
enable men to distinguish between what is difficult and what is 
impossible : a distinction always confounded by merely sensible 
men ; who do not even suspect the existence of those means, which 
men of genius employ to effect their object. It is only passion 
which gives a man that high enthusiasm for his country, and 
makes him regard it as the only object worthy of human attention ; 
— an enthusiasm, which to common eyes appears madness and 
extravagance ; but which always creates fresh powers or mind, 
and commonly insures their ultimate success. In fact, it is only 
the great passions, which, tearing us away from the seductions of 
indolence, endow us with that continuity of attention, to which 
alone superiority of mind is attached. It is to their passions, 



THEIR INFLUENCE. 255 

alone, under the providence of God, that nations must trust, when 
perils gather thick about them, and their last moments seem to be 
at hand. The history of the world shows us that men are not to 
be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their 
passions ; by their deep sense of injury ; by their memory of past 
glory ; by their eagerness for fresh fame ; by their clear and steady 
resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, 
which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and 
chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. 
All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There 
are seasons in human affairs, when qualities fit enough to conduct 
the common business of life, are feeble and useless ; and when 
men must trust to emotion, for that safety which reason at such 
times can never give. These are the feelings which led the ten 
thousand over the Carduchian mountains ; these are the feelings 
by which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of Persia : 
they have, by turns, humbled Austria, reduced Spain ; and in the 
fens of the Dutch, and on the mountains of the Swiss, defended 
the happiness, and revenged the oppressions, of man ! God calls 
all the passions out in their keenness and vigour, for the present 
safety of mankind. Anger and revenge, and the heroic mind, and 
a readiness to suffer: — all the secret strength, all the invisible 
array, of the feelings — all that nature has reserved for the great 
scenes of the world. For the usual hopes, and the common aids 
of man, are all gone ! Kings have perished, armies are subdued, 
nations mouldered away ! Nothing remains, under God, but those 
passions which have often proved the best ministers of his 
vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world. 



256 PREACHING. 



PASSAGES FROM SERMONS. 



OF SERMONS.* 

Preaching has become a bye-word for long and dull conversa^ 
tion of any kind ; and whoever wishes to imply, in any piece of 
writing, the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, calls it 
a sermon. 

One reason for this is the bad choice of subjects for the pulpit 
The clergy are allowed about twenty-six hours every year for the 
instruction of their fellow-creatures ; and I can not help thinking 
this short time had better be employed on practical subjects, in ex- 
plaining and enforcing that conduct which the spirit of Christianity 
requires, and which mere worldly happiness commonly coincides 
to recommend. These are the topics nearest the heart, which 
make us more fit for this and a better world, and do all the good 
that sermons ever will do. Critical explanations of difficult pas- 
sages of Scripture, dissertations on the doctrinal and mysterious 
points of religion, learned investigations of the meaning and accom- 
plishment of prophecies, do well for publication, but are ungenial 
to the habits and taste of a general audience. Of the highest im- 
portance they are to those who can defend the faith and study it 
profoundly ; but God forbid it should be necessary to be a scholar, 
or a critic, in order to be a Christian. To the multitude, whether 
elegant or vulgar, the result only of erudition, employed for the 
defence of Christianity, can be of any consequence : with thus eru- 
dition itself they can not meddle, and must be fatigued if they are 
doomed to hear it. In every congregation there are a certain num- 
ber whom principle, old age, or sickness, has rendered truly de- 

* From the Preface to the Collection of Sermons, at Edinburgh, 1800. 



MORAL DISCOURSES. 257 

vout ; but in preaching, as in everything else, the greater number 
of instances constitute the rule, and the lesser the exception. 

A distinction is set up, with the usual inattention to the meaning 
of words, between moral and religious subjects of discourse ; as if 
every moral subject must not necessarily be a Christian subject. 
If Christianity concern itself with our present; as well as our future 
happiness, how can any virtue, or the doctrine which inculcates it, 
be considered as foreign to our sacred religion ? Has our Saviour 
forbidden justice — proscribed mercy, benevolence, and good faith? 
or, when we state the more sublime motives for their cultivation, 
which we derive from revelation, why are we not to display the 
temporal motives also, and to give solidity to elevation by fixing 
piety upon interest ? 

There is a bad taste in the language of sermons evinced by a 
constant repetition of the same scriptural phrases, which, perhaps, 
were used with great judgment two hundred years ago, but are 
now become so trite that they may, without any great detriment, 
be exchanged for others. " Putting off the old man — and putting 
on the new man," " The one thing needful," " The Lord hath set 
up his candlestick," " The armour of righteousness," etc., etc., etc., 
etc. The sacred Scriptures are surely abundant enough to afford 
us the same idea with some novelty of language : we can never be 
driven, from the penury of these writings, to wear and fritter their 
holy language into a perfect cant, which passes through the ear 
without leaving any impression. 

To this cause of the unpopularity of sermons may be added the 
extremely ungraceful manner in which they are delivered. The 
English, generally remarkable for doing very good things in a very 
bad manner, seem to have reserved the maturity and plenitude of 
their awkwardness for the pulpit. A clergyman clings to his vel- 
vet cushion with either hand, keeps his eye riveted upon his book, 
speaks of the ecstasies of joy and fear with a voice and a face 
which indicate neither, and pinions his body and soul into the same 
attitude of limb and thought, for fear of being called theatrical and 
affected. The most intrepid veteran of us all dares no more than 
wipe his face with his cambric sudarium ;* if, by mischance, his 
hand slip from its orthodox gripe of the velvet, he draws it back 
as from liquid brimstone, or the caustic iron of the law, and atones 

* Classical Latin for a cloth to wipe away perspiration, or, a handkerchief. 



258 ELOQUENCE. 

for this indecorum by fresh inflexibility and more rigorous same- 
ness. Is it wonder, then, that every semi-delirious sectary who 
pours forth his animated nonsense with the genuine look and voice 
of passion should gesticulate away the congregation of the most 
profound and learned divine of the Established Church, and in two 
Sundays preach him bare to the very sexton ? Why are we nat- 
ural everywhere but in the pulpit ? No man expresses warm and 
animated feelings anywhere else, with his mouth alone, but with 
his whole body ; he articulates with every limb, and talks from 
head to foot with a thousand voices. Why this holoplexia* on 
sacred occasions alone ? Why call in the aid of paralysis to piety? 
It is a rule of oratory to balance the style against the subject, and 
to handle the most sublime truths in the dullest language and the 
driest manner ? Is sin to be taken from men as Eve was from 
Adam, by casting them into a deep slumber ? Or from what pos- 
sible perversion of common sense are we all to look like field- 
preachers hi Zembla, holy lumps of ice numbed into quiescence, 
and stagnation, and mumbling ? 

It is theatrical to use action, and it is Methodistical to use ac- 
tion. 

But we have cherished contempt for sectaries, and persevered 
in dignified tameness so long, that while we are freezing common 
sense for large salaries in stately churches, amidst whole acres and 
furlongs of empty pews, the crowd are feasting on ungrammatical 
fervour and illiterate animation in the crumbling hovels of Metho- 
dists. If influence over the imagination can produce these power- 
ful effects ; if this be the chain by which the people are dragged 
captive at the wheel of enthusiasm, why are we, who are rocked 
in the cradle of ancient genius, who hold in one hand the book of 
the wisdom of God, and in the other grasp that eloquence which 
ruled the Pagan world, why are we never to rouse, to appeal, to 
inflame, to break through every barrier, up to the very haunts and 
chambers of the soul ? If the vilest interest upon earth can daily 
call forth all the powers of mind, are we to harangue on public 
order, and public happiness, to picture a reuniting world, a resur- 
rection of souls, a rekindling of ancient affections, the dying day 
of heaven and of earth, and to unveil the throne of God, with a 

* A medical term, indicating; a paralysis of the whole body, as opposed to 
paraplegia or hemiplegia, a palsy of a part. 



WARM CHURCHES. 259 

wretched apathy which we neither feel nor show in the most trifling 
concerns of life ? This surely can be neither decency nor piety, 
but ignorant shame, boyish bashfulness, luxurious indolence, or any- 
thing but propriety and sense. There is, I grant, something dis- 
couraging at present to a man of sense in the sarcastical phrase of 
popular preacher; but I am not entirely without hope that the 
time may come when energy in the pulpit will be no longer con- 
sidered as a mark of superficial understanding ; when animation 
and affectation will be separated ; when churches will cease (as 
Swift says) to be public dormitories ; * and sleep be no longer 
looked upon as the most convenient vehicle of good sense. 

I know well that out of ten thousand orators by far the greater 
number must be bad, or none could be good ; but by becoming 
sensible of the mischief we have done, and are doing, we may all 
advance a proportional step ; the worst may become what the best 
are, and the best better. 

There is always a want of grandeur in attributing great events 
to little causes ; but this is in some small degree compensated for 
by truth. I am convinced we should do no great injury to the 
cause of religion if we remembered the old combination of czar et 
foci, and kept our churches a little warmer. An experienced cler- 
gyman can pretty well estimate the number of his audience by the 
indications of a sensible thermometer. The same blighting wind 
chills piety which is fatal to vegetable life ; yet our power of en- 
countering weather varies with the object of our hardihood ; we 
are very Scythians when pleasure is concerned, and Sybarites 
when the bell summons us to church. 

No reflecting man can ever wish to adulterate manly piety (the 
parent of all that is good in the world) with mummery and parade. 
But we are strange, very strange creatures, and it is better, per- 
haps, not to place too much confidence in our reason alone. If 
anything, there is, perhaps, too little pomp and ceremony in our 
worship, instead of too much. We quarreled with the Roman 
Catholic church, in a great hurry and a great passion, and furious 
with spleen ; clothed ourselves with sackcloth, because she was 

* Fuller, in his Holy State, has said : " It is a shame when the Church 
itself is ccemcterium, wherein the living sleep above ground, as the dead do 
beneath. " Swift makes the most of this subject in his witty sermon on 
Sleeping in Church. 



260 EARNESTNESS. 

habited in brocade ; rushing, like children, from one extreme to 
another, and blind to all medium between complication and bar- 
renness, formality and neglect. I am very glad to find we are 
calling in, more and more, the aid of music to our service. In 
London, where it can be commanded, good music has a prodigious 
effect in filling a church; organs have been put up in various 
churches in the country, and, as I have been informed, with the 
best possible effect. Of what value, it may be asked, are auditors 
who come there from such motives ? But our first business seems 
to be, to bring them there from any motive which is not undigni- 
fied and ridiculous, and then to keep them there from a good one : 
those who come for pleasure may remain for prayer. 

Pious and worthy clergymen are ever apt to imagine that man- 
kind are what they ought to be — to mistake the duty for the fact 
■ — to suppose that religion can never weary its votaries — that the 
same novelty and ornament which are necessary to enforce every 
temporal doctrine are wholly superfluous in religious admonition ; 
and that the world at large consider religion as the most important 
of all concerns, merely because it is so : whereas, if we refer to 
facts, the very reverse appears to be the case. Every considera- 
tion influences the mind in a compound ratio of the importance of 
the effects which it involves, and their proximity. A man who 
was sure to die a death of torture in ten years would think more 
of the most trifling gratification or calamity of the clay than of his 
torn flesh and twisted nerves years hence. If we were to read 
the gazette of a naval victory from the" pulpit, we should be daz- 
zled with the eager eyes of our audience — they would sit through 
an earthquake to hear us. The cry of a child, the fall of a book, 
the most trifling occurrence is sufficient to dissipate religious 
thought, and to introduce a more willing train of ideas : a sparrow 
fluttering about the church is an antagonist which the most pro- 
found theologian in Europe is wholly unable to overcome. A 
clergyman has so little previous disposition to attention in his favour, 
that, without the utmost efforts, he can neither excite it nor preserve 
it when excited. It is his business to awaken mankind by every 
means in his power, and to show them their true interest. If he 
despise energy of manner and labour of composition, from a con- 
viction that his audience are willing, and that his subject alone will 
support him, he will only add lethargy to languor, and confirm the 



CHRISTIAN CHARITY. 261 

drowsiness of his hearers by becoming a great example of sleep 
himself. 

That many greater causes are at work to undermine religion I 
seriously believe ; but I shall probably be laughed at when I say 
that warm churches, solemn music, animated preaching upon 
practical subjects, and a service some little abridged, would be no 
contemptible seconds to the just, necessary, and innumerable in- 
vectives which have been levelled against Rousseau, Voltaire, 
D'Alembert, and the whole pandemonium of those martyrs to 
atheism who toiled with such laborious malice, and suffered odium 
with such inflexible profligacy, for the wretchedness and despair 
of their fellow-creatures. 

I have merely expressed what appears to me to be the truth in 
these remarks. I hope I shall not give offence ; I am sure I do 
not mean to do it. Some allowance should be made for the severity 
of censure when the provident satirist furnishes the raw material 
for his own art, and commits every fault which he blames. 



AN ILLUSTRATION.* 

The sun is now fallen in the heavens, and the habitations of 
men are shaded in gross darkness. That sun is hastening onward 
to other climates, to carry to all tongues, and people, and nations 
the splendour of day. What scenes of mad ambition and of 
bleeding war will it witness in its course. What cruel stripes ; 
what iron bondage of the human race ; what debasing superstition ; 
what foul passions ; what thick and dismal ignorance ! It will 
beam upon the savage and sensual Moor ; it will lighten the robber 
of Arabia to his prey ; it will glitter on the chains of the poor 
negro. It will waken the Indian of the ocean to eat the heart of 
his captive. The bigot Turk will hail it from the summit of his 
mosque ; it will guide the Brahmin to his wooden gods ; but in all 
its course it will witness perhaps no other spectacle of a free, 
rational people, gathered together under the influence of Revela- 
tion, to lighten the load of human misery, and to give of their 
possessions to the afflicted, and the poor. 

* From a Sermon preached for the Scotch Lying-in Hospital, at Edinburgh. 



262 THY SERVANT A MAN. 

TREATMENT OF SERVANTS.* 

Un christianlike conduct to servants does not always proceed 
from a bad heart ; many are guilty of it who have much of com- 
passion and goodness in their nature ; but it seems to proceed 
from a notion early imbibed, never effectually checked, and aided 
by our natural indolence and pride, that a sense of those injuries 
which are conveyed by manner and expression, is almost exclu- 
sively confined to those whose minds are refined by education, or 
whose condition is ennobled by birth ;f but in spite of all the ills 
which poverty can inflict, no human being is base or abject in his 
own eyes. Without wealth, or beauty, or learning, or fame, nay, 
without one soul in all the earth that harbours a thought of him, 
without a place where to lay his head, loathsome from disease, and 
shunned by men, the poorest outcast has still something for which 
he cherishes and fosters himself; he has still some one pride in 
reserve, and you may still make his tears more bitter, and his 
heart more heavy ; do not then take away from men who give you 
their labour for their bread, . those feelings of self-complacency 
which are dear to all conditions, but doubly dear to this ; do not 
take away that from thy poor brother, which cheers him in his toil, 
which gives him a light heart, and wipes the sweat from his brow ; 
and be thou good and kind to him, and speak gentle words to him, 
for the strength of his youth is thine, and remember there is above 
a God, w T hom thou cannot ask to pardon thy follies, and thy 
crimes, if thou forgivest not also the trespasses which are done 
against thee. 

* From a Sermon on the Treatment of Servants. 

t The Rev. Charles Kingsley, in one of his practical religious discourses, a 
lecture on " The Country Parish," after describing the rough-shod benevo- 
lence of certain tempers in intercourse with the poor, says finely, of the 
opposite traits in the character of Sydney Smith : " The love and admiration 
which that truly brave and loving man won from every one, rich or poor, 
with whom he came in contact, seems to me to have arisen from the one fact, 
that without, perhaps having any such conscious intention, he treated rich 
and poor, his own servants, and the noblemen, his guests, alike, and alike 
courteously, considerately, cheerfully, affectionately — so leaving a blessing, 
and reaping a blessing, wheresoever he went." — Lectures to Ladies on Prac- 
tical Subjects. 



PLEASURES OF LIGHT. 263 

THE BLIND.* 

Consider the deplorable union of indigence and blindness, and 
what manner of life it is from which you are rescuing these un- 
happy people ; the blind man comes out in the morning season to 
cry aloud for his food ; when he hears no longer the feet of men 
he knows that it is night, and gets him back to the silence and 
the famine of his cell. Active poverty becomes rich ; labour and 
prudence are rewarded with distinction : the weak of the earth 
have risen up to be strong ; but he is ever dismal, and ever for- 
saken ! The man who comes back to his native city after years 
of absence, beholds again the same extended hand into which he 
cast his boyish alms ; the self-same spot, the old attitude of sad- 
ness, the ancient cry of sorrow, the intolerable sight of a human 
being that has grown old in supplicating a miserable support for a 
helpless, mutilated frame — such is the life these unfortunate 
children would lead, had they no friend to appeal to your compas- 
sion — such are the evils we will continue to remedy, if they ex- 
perience from you that compassion which their magnitude so amply 
deserves. 

The author of the book of Ecclesiastes has told us that the light 
is sweet, that it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun ; 
the sense of sight is, indeed, the highest bodily privilege, the 
purest physical pleasure, which man has derived from his Creator : 
To see that wandering fire, after he has finished his journey 
through the nations, coming back to us in the eastern heavens ; the 
mountains painted with light ; the floating splendour of the sea ; 
the earth waking from deep slumber ; the day flowing down the 
sides of the hills, till it reaches the secret valleys ; the little insect 
recalled to life ; the bird trying her wings ; man going forth to his 
labour ; each created being moving, thinking, acting, contriving 
according to the scheme and compass of its nature ; by force, by 
cunning, by reason, by necessity — is it possible to joy in this 
animated scene and feel no pity for the sons of darkness? for the 
eyes that will never taste the sweet light? for the poor, clouded in 
everlasting gloom? If you ask me why they are miserable and 
dejected, I turn you to the plentiful valleys; to the fields now 
bringing forth their increase ; to the freshness and the flowers of 

* From a Charity Sermon for the Blind, at Edinburgh. 



264 TRUTH. 

the earth ; to the endless variety of its colours ; to the grace, the 
symmetry, the shape of all it cherishes, and all it bears ; these you 
have forgotten because you have always enjoyed them ; but these 
are the means by which God Almighty makes man what he is ; 
cheerful, lively, erect; full of enterprise, mutable, glancing from 
Heaven to earth ; prone to labour and to act. Why was not the 
earth left without form and void ? Why was not darkness suffered 
to remain on the face of the deep ? Why did God place lights in 
the firmament for days, for seasons, for signs, and for years ? that 
he might make man the happiest of beings, that he might give to 
this his favourite creation a wider scope, a more permanent dura- 
tion ; a richer diversity of joy : this is the reason why the blind 
are miserable and dejected, because their soul is mutilated and 
dismembered of its best sense ; because they are a laughter and a 
ruin, and the boys of the streets mock at their stumbling feet; 
therefore I implore you, by the Son of David, have mercy on the 
blind : if there is not pity for all sorrows, turn the full and perfect 
man to meet the inclemency of fate : let not those who have never 
tasted the pleasures of existence, be assailed by any of its sorrows ; 
the eyes which are never gladdened by light should never stream 
with tears.* 



ON TRUTH. 

Upon truth rests all human knowledge : to truth man is indebt- 
ed for the hourly preservation of his life, and for a perpetual guide 
to his actions ; without truth the affairs of the world could no 
longer exist, as they now are, than they could if any of the great 
physical laws of the universe were suspended. As truth is of in- 
dispensable necessity in the great concerns of the world, it is also 
of immense importance as it relates to the common and daily inter- 
course of life. Falsehood must have a direct and powerful ten- 
dency to disturb the order of human affairs, and to introduce into 
the bosom of society every gradation and variety of mischief. 

There is a natural tendency in all men to speak the truth, be- 
cause it is absolutely necessary we should inform ourselves of the 
truth for the common purposes of existence, and we do not say one 

*"This passage," Lady Holland remarks, "was greatly admired by 
Dugald Stewart." 



A LIAR. 265 

thing while we know another, but for the intervention of causes 
which are comparatively infrequent and extraordinary ; the first 
of these which I shall mention is vanity. The vanity of being in- 
teresting, of exciting curiosity, and escaping from the pain of ob- 
scurity : — Great part of the mischief done to character, and of 
those calumnies which ruffle the quiet of life, have their origin in 
this source 

There is a liar, who is not so much a liar from vanity as from 
warmth of imagination, and levity of understanding ; such a man 
has so thoroughly accustomed his mind to extraordinary combina- 
tions of circumstances, that he is disgusted with the insipidity of 
any probable event ; the power of changing the whole course of 
nature is too fascinating for resistance ; every moment must pro- 
duce rare emotions, and stimulate high passions ; life must be a 
series of zests, and relishes, and provocations, and languishing ex- 
istence be refreshed by daily miracles : In the meantime, the dig- 
nity of man passes away, the bloom of Heaven is effaced, friends 
vanish from this degraded liar ; he can no longer raise the look 
of wonder, but is heard in deep, dismal, contemptuous silence ; he 
is shrunk from and abhorred, and lives to witness a gradual con- 
spiracy against him of all that is good and honourable, and wise 
and great. 

Fancy and vanity are not the only parents of falsehood — the 
worst, and the blackest species of it, has its origin in fraud — and, 
for its object, to obtain some advantage in the common intercourse 
of life. Though this kind of falsehood is the most pernicious, in its 
consequences, to the religious character of him who is infected by 
it ; and the most detrimental to the general happiness of society, it 
requires (from the universal detestation in which it is held), less 
notice in an investigation of the nature of truth, intended for prac- 
tical purposes. He whom the dread of universal infamy, the 
horror of being degraded from his rank in society, the thought 
of an hereafter will not inspire with the love of truth — who prefer.-; 
any temporary convenience of a lie, to a broad, safe, and refulgent 
veracity — that man is too far sunk in the depths of depravity for any 
religious instruction he can receive in this place — the canker of 
disease is gone down to the fountains of his blood, and the days of 
his life are told. 

Truth is sacrificed to a greater variety of causes than the nar- 

12 



266 FAITH. 

row limits of a discourse from the pulpit will allow me to state — 
it is sacrificed to boasting, to malice, and to all the varieties of 
hatred — it is sacrificed, also, to that verbal benevolence which de- 
lights in the pleasure of promising, as much as it shrinks from the 
pain of performing, which abounds in gratuitous sympathy, and has 
words, and words only, for every human misfortune. 

I have hitherto considered the love of truth on the negative side 
only, as it indicates what we are not to do — the vices from which 
we are to abstain ; but there is an heroic faith — a courageous 
love of truth, the truth of the Christian warrior — an unconquer- 
able love of justice, that would burst the heart in twain, if it had 
not vent — which makes women men — and men saints — and saints 
angels. Often it has published its creed from amid the flames — 
often it has reasoned under the axe, and gathered firmness from 
a mangled body — often it has rebuked the madness of the people 
— often it has burst into the chambers of princes, to tear down the 
veil of falsehood, and to speak of guilt, of sorrow, and of death. 
Such was the truth which went down with Shadrach to the fiery 
furnace, and descended with Daniel to the lion's den. Such was 
the truth which made the potent Felix tremble at his eloquent 
captive. Such was the truth which roused the timid Peter to 
preach Christ crucified before the Sanhedrim of the Jews — and 
such was the truth which enabled that Christ, whom he did preach, 
to die the death upon the cross 

We shall love truth better if we believe that falsehood is use- 
less ; and we shall believe falsehood to be useless if we entertain 
the notion that it is difficult to deceive ; the fact is (and there can 
be no greater security for well doing than such an opinion), that it 
is almost impossible to deceive the great variety of talent, informa- 
tion, and opinion, of which the world is composed. Truth prevails, 
by the universal combination of all things animate, or inanimate, 
against falsehood ; for ignorance makes a gross and clumsy fiction ; 
carelessness omits some feature of a fiction that is ingenious ; bad 
fellowship in fraud betrays the secret ; conscience bursts it into 
atoms ; the subtlety of angry revenge unravels it ; mere brute, un- 
conspiring matter reveals it ; death lets in the light of truth ; all 
things teach a wise man the difficulty and bad success of falsehood ; 
and truth is inculcated by human policy, as well as by Divine 
command. 



RICHES. 267 

The highest motive to the cultivation of truth, is, that God re- 
quires it of us ; he requires it of us, because falsehood is contrary 
to his nature — because the spirit of man, before it can do hom- 
age to its Creator, must be purified in the furnace of truth. There 
is no more noble trial for him who seeks the kingdom of heaven, 
than to speak the truth ; often the truth brings upon him much sor- 
row ; often it threatens him with poverty, with banishment, with 
hatred, with loss of friends, with miserable old age ; but, as one 
friend loveth another friend the more if they had suffered together 
in a long sorrow, so the soul of a just man, for all he endures, 
clings nearer to the truth ; he mocks the fury of the people, and 
laughs at the oppressor's rod ; and if needs be, he sitteth down 
like Job in the ashes, and God makes his morsel of bread sweeter 
than the feasts of the liar, and all the banquets of sin. 



ON RICHES. 

It is difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 
The first cause to be alleged for this difficulty is, that he wants 
that important test of his own conduct, which is to be gained from 
the conduct of his fellow-creatures toward him ; he may be going 
far from the kingdom of God, on the feet of pride, and over the 
spoils of injustice, without learning, from the averted looks, and 
the alienated hearts of men, that his ways are the ways of death. 
Wealth is apt to inspire a kind of awe, which fashions every look, 
modulates every word, and influences every action ; and this, not 
so much from any view to interest, as from that imposing superi- 
ority, exercised upon the imagination by prosperous fortune, from 
which it is extremely difficult for any man to emancipate himself, 
who has not steadily accustomed his judgment to measure his fel- 
low-creatures by real, rather than artificial distinctions, and to 
appeal from the capricious judgments of the world to his own 
reflections, and to the clear and indisputable precepts of the 
Gospel. 

The general presumption, indeed, which we are apt to form, is, 
that the mischief is already done ; ilia! the rich man has been ac- 
customed to such flattering reception, <urh gracious falsehoods, 
and such ingenious deceit, that to treat him justly, is to treat him 
harshly; and, to defer to him only in the proportion of his merit, 



268 dives. 

is a violation of established forms. No man feels it to be his duty 
to combat with the gigantic errors of the world, and -to exalt himself 
into a champion of righteousness ; he leaves the state of society 
just as he found it, and indolently contributes his quota of deceit, 
to make the life of a human being a huge falsehood from the 
cradle to the tomb. It is this which speaks to Dives the false 
history of his shameless and pampered life ; — here it is, in the 
deceitful mirror of the human face, that he sees the high gifts 
with which God has endowed him ; and here it is, in that mirror, 
so dreadfully just to guilty poverty, he may come back, after he 
has trampled on every principle of honour and justice, and see 
joy, and delight, and unbounded hospitality, and unnumbered 
friends. Therefore, I say to you, when you enter in among your 
fellows, in the pomp, and plenitude of wealth — when the meek 
eye of poverty falls before you — when all men listen to your 
speech, and the approving smile is ready to break forth on every 
brow — then keep down your rising heart, and humble yourself 
before your father who seeth in secret ; then fear very greatly 
for your salvation ; then tremble more than Felix trembled ; 
then remember that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye 
of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. 

The second reason why it so difficult for a rich man to enter 
into the kingdom of God is^ that he loves the kingdom of the 
world too well. Death is very terrible, says the son of Sirach, to 
him who lives at ease in his possessions ; and in truth the pleas- 
ure of life does, in a great measure, depend upon the lot which 
we draw, and the heritage which we enjoy ; it may be urged, that 
a person who knows no other situation, wishes no other ; and that 
the boundary of his experience is the boundary of his desire. 
This would be true enough if we did not derive our notions of 
happiness and misery from a wider range of observation than our 
own destiny can afford ; I will not speak of great misfortunes, for 
such instances prove put too clearly, how much the love of life 
depends on the enjoyment it affords; — but a man who is the 
eternal prey of solicitude, wishes for the closing of the scene ; a 
constant, cheerless struggle with little miseries, will dim the sun, 
and wither the green herb, and taint the fresh wind; — he will 
cry out, let me depart — he will count his gray hairs with joy, and 



DANGERS OF WEALTH. 269 

one day will seem unto him as many. Those who are not re- 
minded of the wretchedness of human existence by such reflec- 
tions as these, who are born to luxury and respect, and sheltered 
from the various perils of poverty, begin to forget the precarious 
tenure of worldly enjoyments, and to build sumptuously on the 
sand ; they put their trust (as the Psalmist says) in chariots and 
horses, and dream they shall live for ever in those palaces which 
are but the outhouses of the grave. There are very few men, in 
fact, who are capable of withstanding the constant effect of arti- 
ficial distinctions ; it is difficult to live upon a throne, and to think 
of a tomb ; it is difficult to be clothed in splendour, and to re- 
member we are dust; it is difficult for the rich and the prosperous 
to keep their hearts as a burning coal upon the altar, and to humble 
themselves before God as they rise before men. In the mean- 
time, while pride gathers in the heart, the angel is ever writing in 
the book, and wrath is ever mantling in the cup ; complain not in 
the season of wo, that you are parched with thirst ; ask not for 
water, as Dives asked, you have a warning which he never had. 
There stand the ever-memorable words of the text, which break 
down the stateliness of man, and dissipate the pageantry of the 
earth ; — thus it is that the few words of a God can make the purple 
of the world appear less beautiful than the mean garments of a 
beggar, and striking terror into the hearts of rulers and of ex- 
archs, turn the banners of dominion to the ensigns of death, and 
make them shudder at the sceptre which they wield. To-day, 
you are clothed in fine linen, and fare sumptuously ; in a few and 
evil years, they shall hew you out a tomb of marble, whiter than 
snow, and the cunning artifice of the workman shall grave on it 
weeping angels, and make a delicate image of one fleeing up to 
heaven, as if it were thee, and shall relate in golden letters, the 
long story of your honours and your birth — thou fool ! ! He that 
dieth by the roadside for the lack of a morsel of bread, God loveth 
him as well as he loveth thee ; and at the gates of heaven, and 
from the blessed angels, thou slialt learn, thai it is easier for a 
camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Another fatal effect of greal wealth is, that it is apt to harden 
the heart; wealth gives power; power produces immediate grati- 
fication ; the long habit of immediate gratification, an impatience 



270 THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. 

of unpleasant feelings ; a claim to be exempted from the contem- 
plation of human misery, of everything calculated to inspire 
gloom, to pollute enjoyment, and protrude a sense of painful 
duties ; the compassion with which prosperous men are born in 
common with us all, is never cherished by a participation in the 
common suffering, a share in the general struggle ; it wants that 
sense of the difficulty and wretchedness of existence, by which we 
obtain the best measure of the sufferings of our fellow-creatures. 
"We talk of human life as a journey, but how variously is that 
journey performed? there are some who come forth girt, and 
shod, and mantled, to walk on velvet lawns, and smooth terraces, 
where every gale is arrested, and every beam is tempered ; there 
are others who walk on the alpine paths of life, against driving 
misery, and through stormy sorrows ; and over sharp afflictions, 
walk with bare feet and naked breast, jaded, mangled, and chilled. 
It is easy enough to talk of misfortunes ; that they exist, no man 
can be ignorant ; it is not the bare knowledge of them that is 
wanting, but that pungent, vital commiseration, under the influence 
of which a man springs up from the comforts of his home, deserts 
his favourite occupations, toils, invents, investigates, struggles, 
wades through perplexity, disappointment, and disgust, to save a 
human being from shame, poverty, and destruction : here then is 
the jet, and object of our blessed Saviour's menace ; and reason- 
able enough it is that he who practically withdraws himself from 
the great Christian community of benevolence, should be cut off 
from the blessings of Christian reward. If we suffer ourselves to 
be so infatuated by the enjoyments of this world, as to forget the 
imperious claims of affliction, and to render our minds, from the 
long habit of selfish gratification, incapable of fulfilling the duties 
we owe to mankind, then let us not repine, that our lot ceases 
in this world, or that the rich man shall never inherit immortal 
life. 

As to that confidence and pride of which riches are too often 
the source, what can the constitution of that mind be, which has 
formed these notions of Divine wisdom and justice ? Was this in- 
equality of possessions contrived for the more solid establishment 
of human happiness, that there might be gradation and subordina- 
tion among men ? or was it instituted to give an arbitrary and use- 
less superiority of one human being over another? Are any 



USES OF WEALTH. 271 

duties exacted for the good conferred ? or was a rich man only 
born to sleep quietly, to fare sumptuously, and to be clothed in 
brave apparel? Has He, who does not create a particle of dust 
but it has its use, has He, do you imagine, formed one human 
being merely as a receptable of choice fruits and delicate viands ; 
and has He stationed a thousand others about him, of the same 
flesh and blood, that they might pick up the crumbs of his table, 
and gratify the wishes of his heart ? No man is mad enough to 
acknowledge such an opinion ; but many enjoy wealth as if they 
had no other notion respecting it than that they were to extract 
from it the greatest enjoyment possible, to eat and drink to-day, 
and to mock at the threatened death of to-morrow. 

The command of our Saviour to the rich man, was, " Go thy way 
quickly, sell all thou hast, divide it among the poor, and take up 
thy cross and follow me ;" but this precept of our blessed Lord, 
as it was intended only for the interests of the Gospel, and the 
state of the world at that period, cannot be considered as appli- 
cable to the present condition of mankind ; to preach such exalted 
doctrine in these latter days, would, I am afraid, at best be use- 
less ; our object is to seek for some fair medium between selfish- 
ness and enthusiasm. If something of great possessions be dedi- 
cated to inspire respect, and preserve the gradations of society, a 
part to the real wants, a little to the ornaments and superfluities 
of life, a little even to the infirmities of the possessor, how much 
will remain for the unhappy, who ask only a preference over 
vicious pleasure, disgraceful excess, and idle ostentation. 

Neither is it to objects only of individual misery, that the ap- 
plication of wealth is to be confined ; whatever has for its object 
to enlarge human knowledge, or to propagate moral and religious 
principle; whatever may effect, immediately or remotely, directly 
or indirectly, the public happiness, may add to the comforts, re- 
press the crimes, or animate the virtues of social life ; to every 
sacred claim of this nature, the appetite for frivolous pleasure, and 
the passion for frivolous display, must implicitly yield: if the 
minutiae of individual charity present an object too inconsiderable 
for a capacious mind, there are vast asylums for sickness and 
want, which invite your aid; breathe among (heir sad inhabitants 
the spirit of consolation and order, give to them wiser arrange- 
ments and wider limits, prepare shelter for unborn wretchedness, 



272 CURE OF PRIDE. 

and medicine for future disease ; give opportunity to talents, and 
scope to goodness ; go among the multitude, and see if you can 
drag from the oblivious heap some child of God, some gift of 
heaven, whose mind can burst through the secrets of nature, and 
influence the destiny of man. This is the dignified and religious 
use of riches, which, when they cherish boyish pride, to minister 
to selfish pleasure, shall verily doom their possessor to the flames 
of hell. — But he who knows wherefore God has given him great 
possessions, he shall die the death of Lazarus, without leading his 
life, and rest in the bosom of Abraham, though he never stretched 
forth his wounds to the dogs, nor gathered up the crumbs of the 
table for his food. 

The best mode of guarding against that indirect flattery, which 
is always paid to wealth, is to impress the mind with a thorough 
belief of the fact; and to guard, by increased inward humility, 
against the danger of corruption from without. The wealthy man 
who attributes to himself great or good qualities, from what he con- 
ceives to be the opinion of the world, exposes himself to dangerous 
errors ; on the most important of all subjects, this source of self- 
judgment is for him most effectually poisoned ; he must receive 
such evidence with the utmost distrust, weigh every circumstance 
with caution, court animadversion and friendly candour, and cherish 
the man by whose polished justice his feelings are consulted, while 
his follies are repressed. 

For the pride which is contracted by the contemplation of little 
things, there is no better cure than the contemplation of great 
things. Let a rich man turn from his own pompous littleness, and 
think of heaven, of eternity, and of salvation ; let him think of all 
the nations that lie dead in the dust, waiting for the trumpet of 
God ; he will smile at his own brief authority, and be as one 
lifted up to a high eminence, to whom the gorgeous palaces of the 
world are the specks and atoms of the eye ; the great laws of na- 
ture pursue their eternal course, and heed not the frail distinctions 
of this life ; the fever spares not the rich and the great ; the tem- 
pest does not pass by them ; they are racked by pain, they are 
weakened by disease, they are broken by old age, they are agonized 
in death like other men, they moulder in the tomb, they differ only 
from other men in this, that God will call them to a more severe 
account, that they must come before him with deeds of Christian 



ROMILLY. 273 

charity and acts of righteousness, equal to all the opportunities and 
blessings whieh they have enjoyed. 

Let the rich man, then, remember, in the midst of his enjoy- 
ments, by what slight tenure those enjoyments are held. In addi- 
tion to the common doubt which hangs over the life of all men, 
fresh perils lie hid in his pleasures, and the very object for which 
he lives may be the first to terminate his existence. " Remember 
thou art mortal," was said every day to a great king. So, after 
the same fashion, I would that a man of great possessions should 
frequently remember the end of all things, and the long home, and 
the sleeping-place of a span in breadth ; I would have him go 
from under the gilded dome down to the place where they will 
gather him to the bones of his fathers ; he should tread in the dust 
of the noble, and trample on the ashes of the proud ; I would heap 
before him sights of woe and images of death and terror ; I would 
break down his stateliness, and humble him before his Redeemer 
and his Judge. My voice should ever sound in his ears, that it is 
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for s 
rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. 



TKIBUTE TO SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.* 

And let me ask you, my brethren, we who see the good and 
great daily perishing before our eyes, what comfort have we but 
this hope in Christ that we shall meet again? Remember the 
eminent men who, within the few years last past, have paid the 
great debt of nature. The earth stripped of its moral grandeur, 
sunk in its spiritual pride. The melancholy wreck of talents and 
of wisdom gone, my brethren, when we feel how dear, how valu- 
able they were to us, when we would have asked of God, on our 
bended knees, their preservation and their life. Can we live with 
all that is excellent in human nature, can we study it, can we con- 
template it, and then lose it, and never hope to sec it again? 

Can we say of any human being, as we may say of thai great 
man who was torn from us in the beginning of this winter, dial he 
acted with vast capacity upon ail the .ureal calamities of life; that 
he came with unblemished purity to restrain iniquity; that, con- 

* From a sermon on Meditation on Death. Romilly, in a fit of temporary 
insanity, brought on by grief for the death of his wife, committed suicide, 
November 2, 1818. 

19* 



274 EDUCATION. 

demning injustice, he was just ; that, restraining corruption, he was 
pure ; that those who were provoked to look into the life of a great 
statesman, found him a good man also, and acknowledged he was 
sincere, even when they did not believe he was right ? Can we 
say of such a man, with all the career of worldly ambition before 
him, that he was the friend of the wretched and the poor; that in 
the midst of vast occupation, he remembered the debtor's cell, the 
prisoner's dungeon, the last hour of the law's victim ; that he medi- 
tated day and night on wretchedness, weakness, and want ? Can 
we say all this of any human being, and then have him no more in 
remembrance ? When you " die daily," my brethren ; when you 
remember my text, paint to yourselves the gathering together again 
of the good and the just. 

Remember that God is to be worshipped, that death is to be 
met, by such a life as this ; remember, in the last hour, that rank, 
that birth, that wealth, that all earthly things will vanish away, 
that you will then think only of the wretchedness you have les- 
sened and the good you have done. 



POPULAR EDUCATION.* 

First and foremost, I think the new Queen should bend her 
mind to the very serious consideration of educating the people. 
Of the importance of this, I think no reasonable doubt can exist ; 
it does not, in its effects, keep pace with the exaggerated expecta- 
tions of its injudicious advocates, but it presents the best chance of 
national improvement. 

Reading and writing are mere increase of power. They may 
be turned, I admit, to a good or a bad purpose ; but for several 
years of his life the child is in your hands, and you may give to 
that power^what bias you please: thou shait not kill — thou shalt 
not steal — thou shalt not bear false witness ; — by how many fables, 
by how much poetry, by how many beautiful aids of imagination, 
may not the fine morality of the sacred Scriptures be engraven on 
the minds of the young ? I believe the arm of the assassin may 
be often stayed by the lessons of his early life. When I see the 

* This and the succeeding passage are from a sermon, preached at St. 
Paul's on the accession of Victoria, on the Duties of the Queen — from the 
text, Dan. iv. 31 : " Oh king, thy kingdom is departed from thee/' 



TO THE QUEEN. 275 

village-school, and the tattered scholars, and the aged master or 
mistress teaching the mechanical art of reading or writing, and 
thinking that they are teaching that alone, I feel that the aged in- 
structor is protecting life, insuring property, fencing the altar, 
guarding the throne, giving space and liberty to all the tine powers 
of man, and lifting him up to his own place in the order of crea- 
tion. 

There are, I am sorry to say, many countries in Europe, which 
have taken the lead of England in the great business of education, 
and it is a thoroughly commendable and legitimate object of ambi- 
tion in a sovereign to overtake them. The names, too, of male- 
factors, and the nature of their crimes, are subjected to the sov- 
ereign; — how is it possible that a sovereign, with the fine feel- 
ings of youth, and with all the gentleness of her sex, should not 
ask herself, whether the human being whom she dooms to death, 
or at least does not rescue from death, has been properly warned 
in early youth, of the horrors of that crime for which his life is 
forfeited? "Did he ever receive any education at all? — did a 
father and mother watch over him ? — was he brought to places of 
worship? — was the Word of God explained to him? — was the 
book of knowledge opened to him? — Or am I, the fountain of 
mercy, the nursing-mother of my people, to send a forsaken wretch 
from the streets to the scaffold, and to prevent, by unprincipled 
cruelty, the evils of unprincipled neglect ?" 

Many of the objections found against the general education of 
the people are utterly untenable ; where all are educated, educa- 
tion cannot be a source of distinction and a subject for pride. The 
great source of labour is want ; and as long as the necessities of 
life call for labour — labour is sure to be supplied. All these fears 
are foolish and imaginary ; the great use and the great importance 
of education properly conducted, are, that it creates a ureal bias in 
favour of virtue and religion, at a period of life when the mind is 
open to all the impressions which superior wisdom may choose to 
affix upon it; the sum and mass of these tendencies and inclina- 
tions make a good and virtuous people, and draw down upon us 
the blessing and protection of Almighty God. 



276 CUESE OF WAR. 

WAR. 

A second great object which I hope will be impressed upon 
the mind of this royal lady is, a rooted horror of war — an earnest 
and passionate desire to keep her people in a state of profound 
peace. The greatest curse which can be entailed upon mankind 
is a state of war. All the atrocious crimes committed in years of 
peace — all that is spent in peace by the secret corruptions, or by 
the thoughtless extravagance of nations, are mere trifles compared 
with the gigantic evils which stalk over the world in a state of war; 
God is forgotten in war — every principle of Christian charity 
trampled upon — human labour destroyed — human industry ex- 
tinguished; — you see the son, and the husband, and the brother, 
dying miserably in distant lands — you see the waste of human 
affections — you see the breaking of human hearts — you hear the 
shrieks of widows and children after the battle — and you walk 
over the mangled bodies of the wounded calling for death. I would 
say to that royal child, worship God, by loving peace — it is not 
your humanity to pity a beggar by giving him food and raiment — 
/can do that; that is the charity of the humble, and the unknown 
— widen you your heart for the more expanded miseries of man- 
kind — pity the mothers of the peasantry, who see their sons torn 
away from their families — pity your poor subjects crowded into 
hospitals, and calling in their last breath, upon their distant coun- 
try and their young queen — pity the stupid, frantic folly of human 
beings, who are always ready to tear each other to pieces, and to 
deluge the earth with each other's blood ; this is your extended 
humanity— and this the great field of your compassion. Extin- 
guish in your heart the fiendish love of military glory, from which 
your sex does not necessarily exempt you, and to which the wick- 
edness of flatterers may urge you. Say upon your death-bed, " I 
have made few orphans in my reign — I have made few widows — 
my object has been peace. I have used all the weight of my char- 
acter, and all the power of my situation, to check the irascible 
passions of mankind, and to turn them to the arts of honest indus- 
try : this has been the Christianity of my throne, and this the Gos- 
pel of my sceptre ; in this way I have striven to worship my Re- 
deemer and my Judge." 

I would add (if any addition were wanted as a part of the lesson 



ALL MISEEY AND FOLLY. 277 

to youthful royalty), the utter folly of all wars of ambition, where 
the object sought for — if attained at all — is commonly attained at 
manifold its real value, and often wrested, after short enjoyment, 
from its possessor, by the combined indignation and just vengeance 
of the other nations of the world. It is all misery, and folly, and 
impiety, and cruelty. The atrocities, and horrors, and disgusts of 
war, have never been half enough insisted upon by the teachers of 
the people ; but the worst of evils and the greatest of follies, have 
been varnished over with specious names, and the gigantic robbers 
and murderers of the world have been holden up, for their imita- 
tion, to the weak eyes of youth. May honest counsellors keep this 
poison from the mind of the young queen. May she love what 
God bids, and do what makes men happy ! 



278 CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS. 



ESSAYS AND SKETCHES. 



PRACTICAL ESSAYS.* 

OF THE BODY. 



Happiness is not impossible without health, but it is of very 
difficult attainment. I do not mean by health merely an absence 
of dangerous complaints, but that the body should be in perfect 
tune — full of vigor and alacrity. 

The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary 
is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness 
in the world proceeds from little stoppages, from a duct choked 
up, from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vexed duodenum, 
or an agitated pylorus. 

The deception, as practised upon human creatures, is curious 
and entertaining. My friend sups late ; he eats some strong soup, 
then a lobster, then some tart, and he dilutes these esculent varie- 
ties with wine. The next day I call upon him. He is going to 
sell his house in London, and to retire into the country. He is 
alarmed for his eldest daughter's health. His expenses are hourly 
increasing, and nothing but a timely retreat can save him from 
ruin. All this is the lobster ; and when over-excited nature has 
had time to manage this testaceous encumbrance, the daughter 
recovers, the finances are in good order, and every rural idea 
effectually excluded from the mind. 

In the same manner old friendships are destroyed by toasted 
cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. Unpleasant 

* Published in Lady Holland's Memoir as, "A few Unfinished Sketches 
from a Projected Series of ' Practical Essays.' " 



STUDY THE BODY. 279 

feelings of the body produce correspondent sensations in the mind, 
and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of 
indigestible and misguided food. Of such infinite consequence 
to happiness is it to study the body ! 

I have nothing new to say upon the management which the 
body requires. The common rules are the best : exercise without 
fatigue ; generous living without excess ; early rising, and modera- 
tion in sleeping. These are the apothegms of old women ; but if 
they are not attended to, happiness becomes so extremely difficult 
that very few persons can attain to it. In this point of view, the 
care of the body becomes a subject of elevation and importance. 
A walk in the fields, an hour's less sleep, may remove all those 
bodily vexations and disquietudes which are such formidable 
enemies to virtue ; and may enable the mind to pursue its own 
resolves without that constant train of temptations to resist, and 
obstacles to overcome, which it always experiences from the bad 
organization of its companion. Johnson says, every man is a 
rascal, when he is sick ; meaning, I suppose, that he has no benev- 
olent dispositions at that period toward his fellow-creatures, but 
that his notions assume a character of greater affinity to his bodily 
feelings, and that, feeling pain, he becomes malevolent ; and if this 
be true of great diseases, it is true in a less degree of the smaller 
ailments of the body. 

Get up in a morning, walk before breakfast, pass four or Hve 
hours of the day in some active employment ; then eat and drink 
overnight, lie in bed till one or two o'clock, saunter away the rest 
of the day in doing nothing ! — can any two human beings be more 
perfectly dissimilar than the same individual under these two dif- 
ferent systems of corporeal management ? and is it not of as great 
importance toward happiness to pay a minute attention to the body, 
as it is to study the wisdom of Chrysippus and Crantor ? 



OF OCCUPATION. 

A GOOD stout bodily machine being provided, we must be act- 
ively occupied, or there can be little happiness. 

If a good useful occupation be not provided, it is so ungenial to 
the human mind to do nothing, that men occupy themselves peril* 
ously, as with gaming ; or frivolously, as with walking up and down 



280 OCCUPATION. 

a street at a watering-place, and looking at the passers-by ; or 
malevolently, as by teazing their wives and children. It is im- 
possible to support, for any length of time, a state of perfect ennui ; 
and if you were to shut a man up for any length of time within 
four walls, without occupation, he would go mad. If idleness do 
not produce vice or malevolence, it commonly produces melancholy. 

A stockbroker or a farmer has no leisure for imaginary wretch- 
edness ; their minds are usually hurried away by the necessity 
of noticing external objects, and they are guaranteed from that 
curse of idleness, the eternal disposition to think of themselves. 

If we have no necessary occupation, it becomes extremely 
difficult to make to ourselves occupations as entirely absorbing as 
those which necessity imposes. 

The profession which a man makes for himself is seldom more 
than a half profession, and often leaves the mind in a state of 
vacancy and inoccupation. We must lash ourselves up, however, 
as well as we can, to a notion of its great importance ; and as the 
dispensing power is in our own hands, we must be very jealous 
of remission and of idleness. 

It may seem absurd that a gentleman who does not live by the 
profits of farming should rise at six o'clock in the morning to look 
after his farm ; or, if botany be his object, that he should voyage 
to Iceland in pursuit of it. He is the happier however for his 
eagerness ; his mind is more fully employed, and he is much more 
effectually guaranteed from all the miseries of ennui. 

It is asked, if the object can be of such great importance. 
Perhaps not ; but the pursuit is. The fox, when caught, is worth 
nothing : he is followed for the pleasure of the following. 

What is a man to do with his life who has nothing which he 
must do ? It is admitted he must find some employment, but does 
it signify what that employment is ? Is he employed as much for 
his own happiness in cultivating a flower-garden as in philosophy, 
literature, or politics ? This must depend upon the individual 
himself, and the circumstances in which he is placed. As far as 
the mere occupation or exclusion of ennui goes, this can be settled 
only by the feelings of the person employed ; and if the attention 
be equally absorbed, in this point of view one occupation is as 
good as another ; but a man who is conscious he was capable of 
doing great things, and has occupied himself with trifles beneath 



FRIENDSHIPS. 281 

the level of his understanding, is apt to feel envy at the lot of 
those who have excelled him, and remorse at the misapplication 
of his own powers ; he has not added to the pleasures of occupation 
the pleasures of benevolence, and so has not made his occupation 
as agreeable as he might have done, and he has probably not 
gained as much fame and wealth as he might have done if his 
pursuits had been of a higher nature. For these reasons it seems 
right that a man should attend to the highest pursuits in which he 
has any fair chance of excelling ; he is as much occupied, gains more 
of what is worth gaining, and excludes remorse more effectually, 
even if he fail, because he is conscious of having made the effort. 
When a very clever man, or a very great man, takes to culti- 
vating turnips and retiring, it is generally an imposture. The 
moment men cease to talk of their turnips, they are wretched and 
full of self-reproach. Let every man be occupied, and occupied 
in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die 
with the consciousness that he has done his best/" 



OF FRIENDSHIP. 

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to 
be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence. If I lived under 
the burning sun of the equator, it would be a pleasure to me to 
think that there were many human beings on the other side of the 
world who regarded and respected me ; I could and would not 
live if I were alone upon the earth, and cut off from the remem- 
brance of my fellow-creatures. It is not that a man has occasion 
often to fall back upon the kindness of his friends ; perhaps he 
may never experience the necessity of doing so ; but we are gov- 
erned by our imaginations, and they stand there as a solid and 
impregnable bulwark against all the evils of life. 

Friendships should be formed witli persons of all ages and 
conditions, and with both sexes. I have a friend who is a book- 
seller, to whom I have been very civil, and who would do anything 
to serve me ; and I have two or three small friendships among per- 
sons in much humbler walks of life, who, I verily believes would do 
me a considerable kindness according to their means. It is a great 
happiness to form a sincere friendship with a woman ; but a friend- 
ship among persons of different sexes rarely or ever takes place 



282 GOOD SPIRITS. 

in this country. The austerity of our manners hardly admits of 
such a connection — compatible with the most perfect innocence, 
and a source of the highest possible delight to those who are for- 
tunate enough to form it. 

Yery few friends will bear to be told of their faults ; and if 
done at all, it must be done with infinite management and delicacy ; 
for if you indulge often in this practice, men think you hate, and 
avoid you. If the evil is not very alarming, it is better, indeed, 
to let it alone, and not to turn friendship into a system of lawful 
and unpunishable impertinence. I am for frank explanations with 
friends in cases of affronts. They sometimes save a perishing 
friendship, and even place it on a firmer basis than at first ; but 
secret discontent must always end badly. 



OF CHEERFULNESS. 

Cheerfulness and good spirits depend, in a great degree, upon 
bodily causes, but much may be done for the promotion of this 
turn of mind. Persons subject to low spirits should make the 
rooms in which they live as cheerful as possible ; taking care that 
the paper with which the wall is covered should be of a brilliant, 
lively colour, hanging up pictures or prints, and covering the 
chimney-piece with beautiful china. A bay-window looking upon 
pleasant objects, and, above all, a large fire whenever the weather 
will permit, are favourable to good spirits, and the tables near 
should be strewed with books and pamphlets. To this must be 
added as much eating and drinking as is consistent with health ; 
and some manual employment for men — as gardening, a carpen- 
ter's shop, the turning-lathe, etc. Women have always manual 
employment enough, and it is a great source of cheerfulness. 
Fresh air, exercise, occupation, society, and travelling, are powerful 
remedies. 

Melancholy commonly flies to the future for its aliment, and 
must be encountered in this sort of artifice, by diminishing the 
range of our views. I have a large family coming on, my income 
is diminishing, and I shall fall into pecuniary difficulties. Well ! 
but you are not now in pecuniary difficulties. Your eldest child 
is only seven years old ; it must be two or three years before your 
family make any additional demands upon your purse. Wait till 



FALLACIES. 283 

the time comes. Much may happen in the interval to better your 
situation ; and if nothing does happen, at least enjoy the two or 
three years of ease and uninterruption which are before you. 
You are uneasy about your eldest son in India ; but it is now 
June, and, at the earliest, the fleet will not come in till September ; 
it may bring accounts of his health and prosperity, but at all 
events there are eight or nine weeks before you can hear news. 
Why are they to be spent as if you had heard the worst ? The 
habit of taking very short views of human life may be acquired 
by degrees, and a great sum of happiness is gained by it. It 
becomes as customary at last to view tilings on the good side of the 
question as it was before to despond, and to extract misery from 
every passing event. 

A firm confidence in an overruling Providence — a remem- 
brance of the shortness of human life, that it will soon be over 
and finished — that we scarcely know, unless we could trace the 
remote consequences of every event, what would be good and 
what an evil ; these are very important topics in that melancholy 
which proceeds from grief. 

It is wise to state to friends that our spirits are low, to state the 
cause of the depression, and to hear all that argument or ridicule 
can suggest for the cure. Melancholy is always the worse for 
concealment, and many causes of depression are so frivolous, that 
we are shamed out of them by the mere statement of their existence. 



FALLACIES.* 

Fallacy L — " Because I have gone through it, my son shall go 
through it also." 

A man gets well pommelled at a public school ; is subject to 
every misery and every indignity which seventeen years of age can 
inflict upon nine and ten ; has his eye nearly knocked out, and his 
clothes stolen and cut to pieces; and twenty years afterward, when 
he is a chrysalis, and has forgotten the miseries of his grub stale, 

* Lady Holland introduces the "Fallacies" in her Memoir with the remark 
of Sydney Smith : " It is astonishing the influence foolish apothegms have 
upon the mass of mankind, though they arc not [infrequently fallacies. Here 
are a few I amused myself with writing long before Bcntham's hook on Fal- 
lacies." 



284 INFLICTIONS ON YOUTH. 

is determined to act a manly part in life, and says, "I passed 
through all that myself, and I am determined my son shall pass 
through it as I have done ;" and away goes his bleating progeny 
to the tyranny and servitude of the long chamber or the large 
dormitory. It would surely be much more rational to say, " Be- 
cause I have passed through it, I am determined my son shall 
not pass through it ; because I was kicked for nothing, and cuffed 
for nothing, and fagged for everything, I will spare all these 
miseries to my child." It is not for any good which may be de- 
rived from this rough usage ; that has not been weighed and 
considered ; few persons are capable of weighing its effects upon 
character ; but there is a sort of compensatory and consolatory no- 
tion, that the present generation (whether useful or not, no matter) 
are not to come off scot-free, but are to have their share of ill- 
usage ; as if the black eye and bloody nose which Master John 
Jackson received in 1800, are less black and bloody by the appli- 
cation of similar violence to similar parts of Master Thomas Jack- 
son, the son, in 1830. This is not only sad nonsense, but cruel 
nonsense. The only use to be derived from the recollection of 
what we have suffered in youth, is a fixed determination to screen 
those we educate from every evil and inconvenience, from sub- 
jection to which there are not cogent reasons for submitting. Can 
anything be more stupid and preposterous than this concealed re- 
venge upon the rising generation, and latent envy lest they should 
avail themselves of the improvements time has made, and pass a 
happier youth than their fathers have done ? 

Fallacy II. — "/ have said I will do it, and I will do it ; I will 
stick to my word." 

This fallacy proceeds from confounding resolutions with prom- 
ises. If you have promised to give a man a guinea for a reward, 
or to sell him a horse or a field, you must do it ; you are dishonest 
if you do not. But if you have made a resolution to eat no meat 
for a year, and everybody about you sees that you are doing mis- 
chief to your constitution, is it any answer to say, you have said 
so, and you will stick to your word ? With whom have you made 
the contract but with yourself? and if you and yourself, the two 
contracting parties, agree to break the contract, where is the evil, 
or who is injured ? 



HALF-MEASURES. 285 

Fallacy IIL—" I object to half -measures — it is neither one thing 
nor the other" 

But why should it be either one thing or the other ? why not 
something between both ? Why are half-measures necessarily or 
probably unwise measures ? I am embarrassed in my circum- 
stances ; one of my plans is, to persevere boldly in the same line 
of expense, and to trust to the chapter of accidents for some in- 
crease of fortune ; the other is, to retire entirely from the world, 
and to hide myself in a cottage ; but I end with doing neither, and 
take a middle course of diminished expenditure. I do neither one 
thing nor the other, but possibly act wiser than if I had done 
either. I am highly offended by the conduct of an acquaintance ; 
I neither overlook it entirely nor do I i^roceed to call him out ; I 
do neither, but show him, by a serious change of manner, that I 
consider myself to have been ill-treated. I effect my object by 
half-measures. I cannot agree entirely ivith the Opposition or the 
Ministry ; it may very easily happen that my half-measures are 
wiser than the extremes to which they are opposed. But it is a 
sort of metaphor which debauches the understanding of foolish 
people ; and when half-measures are mentioned, they have much 
the same feeling as if they were cheated — as if they had bargained 
for a whole bushel and received but half. To act in extremes is 
sometimes wisdom ; to avoid them is sometimes wisdom ; every 
measure must be judged of by its own particular circumstances. 



A nice person is neither too tall nor too short, looks clean and 
cheerful, has no prominent feature, makes no difficulties, is never 
misplaced, sits bodkin, is never foolishly affronted, and is void of 
affectations. 

* Lady Holland ^ives the following account of this little sketch : — " In the 
course of the summer [1823] a young friend came to spend a month with us, 
at Foston, the freshness and originality of whose character both interested 
and amused my father : lie chanced on one occasion to call her ' a nice per- 
son.' 'Oh, don't call me " nice" Mr. Sydney; people only say that where 
they can say nothing else.' ' Why ' have you ever reflected what "am'cfi 
person" means V 'No, Mr. Sydney,' said she, laughing, 'hut I don't like 
it/ ' Well, give me pen and ink ; I will show you/ said my father, ■ a defi- 
nition of a nice person.' " 



286 NICETY AND HARDNESS. 

A nice person helps you well at dinner, understands you, is al- 
ways gratefully received by young and old, whig and tory, grave 
and gay. 

There is something in the very air of a nice person which in- 
spires you with confidence, makes you talk, and talk without fear 
of malicious misrepresentation ; you feel that you are reposing 
upon a nature which God has made kind, and created for the ben- 
efit and happiness of society. It has the effect upon the mind 
which soft air and a fine climate have upon the body. 

A nice person is clear of little, trumpery passions, acknowledges 
superiority, delights in talent, shelters humility, pardons adversity, 
forgives deficiency, respects all men's rights, never stops the bot- 
tle, is never long and never wrong, always knows the day of the 
month, the name of everybody at table, and never gives pain to 
any human being. 

If anybody is wanted for a party, a nice person is the first 
thought of; when the child is christened, when the daughter is 
married — all the joys of life are communicated to nice people ; the 
hand of the dying man is always held out to a nice person. 

A nice person never knocks over wine or melted butter, does 
not tread upon the dog's foot, or molest the family cat, eats soup 
without noise, laughs in the right place, and has a watchful and 
attentive eye. 



DEFINITION OF HARDNESS OF CHARACTER.* 

Hardness is a want of minute attention to the feelings of 
others. It does not proceed from malignity or a carelessness of 
inflicting pain, but from a want of delicate perception of those 
little things by which pleasure is conferred or pain excited. 

A hard person thinks he has done enough if he does not speak 
ill of your relations, your children, or your country ; and then, 
with the greatest good-humour and volubility, and with a total in- 
attention to your individual state and position, gallops over a 

* This was written in 1843, when, in the month of July, "he spent a few 
days at Nuneham, on a visit to his former diocesan, the Archbishop of York. 
He met there a large and agreeable party; and a discussion arising on 
hardness of character, my father, at the request of Miss Georgiana Harcourt, 
wrote this definition of it." — Lachj Holland's Memoir, p. 262. 



A PARISH TRACT. 287 

thousand fine feelings, and leaves in every step the mark of his 
hoofs upon your heart. Analyze the conversation of a well-bred 
man who is clear of the besetting sin of hardness ; it is a perpetual 
homage of polite good-nature. He remembers that you are con- 
nected with the Church, and he avoids (whatever his opinions 
may be) the most distant reflections on the Establishment. He 
knows that you are admired, and he admires you as far as is com- 
patible with good-breeding. He sees that, though young, you are 
at the head of a great establishment, and he infuses into his man- 
ner and conversation that respect which is so pleasing to all who 
exercise authority. He leaves you in perfect good-humour with 
yourself, because you perceive how much and how successfully 
you have been studied. 

In the meantime, the gentleman on the other side of you (a 
highly moral and respectable man) has been crushing little sensi- 
bilities, and violating little proprieties, and overlooking little dis- 
criminations ; and, without violating anything which can be called 
a rule, or committing what can be denominated a fault, has dis- 
pleased and dispirited you, from wanting that fine vision which 
sees little things, and that delicate touch which handles them, and 
that fine sympathy which this superior moral organization always 
bestows. 

So great an evil in society is hardness, and that want of per- 
ception of the minute circumstances which occasion pleasure or 
pain ! 



ADVICE TO PARISHIONERS.* 

If you begin stealing a little, you will go on from little to much, 
and soon become a regular thief; and then you will be hanged, 
or sent over seas to Botany Bay. And give me leave to tell you, 
transportation is no joke. Up at five in the morning, dressed in 

* Lady Holland, in her sketches of "Life and Conversation at Combo 
Florey," introduces this with the following prefatory explanation by Sydney 
Smith himself: " It is lamentable to sec how ignorant the poor arc. I do not 
mean of reading and writing, but about the common affairs of life They are 
> helpless as children in all difficulties. Nothing would he so useful as sonic 
short and cheap hook, to instruct them what to do, to whom to go, and to 
give them a little advice; I mean mere practical advice. I have begun some- 
thing of this sort for my parishioners ; here it is." 



288 WET CLOTHES. 

a jacket half blue half yellow, chained on to another person like 
two dogs, a man standing over you with a great stick, weak por- 
ridge for breakfast, bread and water for dinner, boiled beans for 
supper, straw to lie upon ; and all this for thirty years ; and then 
you are hanged there by order of the governor, without judge or 
jury. All this is very disagreeable, and you had far better avoid 
it by making a solemn resolution to take nothing which does not 
belong to you. 

Never sit in wet clothes. Oft' with them as soon as you can : 
no constitution can stand it. Look at Jackson, who lives next 
door to the blacksmith ; he was the strongest man in the parish. 
Twenty different times I warned him of his folly in wearing wet 
clothes. He pulled off his hat and smiled, and was very civil, but 
clearly seemed to think it. all old woman's nonsense. He is now, 
as you see, bent double with rheumatism, is living upon parish 
allowance, and scarcely able to crawl from pillar to post. 

Off with your hat when you meet a gentleman. What does it 
cost? Gentlemen notice these things, are offended if the civility 
is not paid, and pleased if it is ; and what harm does it do you ? 
When first I came to this parish, Squire Tempest wanted a postil- 
ion. John Barton was a good, civil fellow ; and in thinking over 
the names of the village, the Squire thought of Barton, remem- 
bered his constant civility, sent for one of his sons, made him 
postilion, then coachman, then bailiff, and he now holds a farm 
under the Squire of £500 per annum. Such things are constantly 
happening. 

I will have no swearing. There is pleasure in a pint of ale, 
but what pleasure is there in an oath ? A swearer is a low, vul- 
gar person. Swearing is fit for a tinker or a razor-grinder, not 
for an honest labourer in my parish. 

I must positively forbid all poaching; it is absolute ruin to 
yourself and your family. In the end you are sure to be detected 
— a hare in one pocket and a pheasant in the other. How are 
you to pay ten pounds ? You have not tenpence beforehand in 
the world. Daniel's breeches are unpaid for; you have a hole in 
your hat, and want a new one ; your wife, an excellent woman, is 
about to lie in — and you are, all of a sudden, called upon by the 
justice to pay ten pounds. I shall never forget the sight of poor 
Cranford, hurried to Taunton jail ; a wife and three daughters on 



DRUNKENNESS. 289 

their knees to the justice, who was compelled to do his duty, and 
commit him. The next day, beds, chairs, and clothes, sold, to get 
the father out of jail. Out of jail he came ; but the poor fellow 
could not bear the sight of his naked cottage, and to see his family 
pinched with hunger. You know how he ended his days. Was 
there a dry eye in the churchyard when he was buried ? It was 
a lesson to poachers. It is indeed a desperate and foolish trade. 
Observe, I am not defending the game-laws, but I am advising 
you, as long as the game-laws exist, to fear them, and to take care 
that you and your family are not crushed by them. And then, 
smart, stout young men hate the gamekeeper, and make it a point 
of courage and spirit to oppose him. Why ? The gamekeeper 
is paid to protect the game, and he would be a very dishonest man 
if he did not do his duty. What right have you to bear malice 
against him for this ? After all, the game in justice belongs to the 
land-owners, who feed it ; and not to you, who have no land at 
all, and can feed nothing. 

I don't like that red nose, and those blear eyes, and that stupid, 
downcast look. You are a drunkard. Another pint, and one 
pint more ; a glass of gin and water, rum and milk, cider and 
pepper, a glass of peppermint, and all the beastly fluids which 
drunkards pour down their throats. It is very possible to conquer 
it, if you will but be resolute. I remember a man in Staffordshire 
who was drunk every day of his life. Every farthing he earned 
went to the ale-house. One evening he staggered home, and found 
at a late hour his wife sitting alone, and drowned in tears. He 
was a man not deficient in natural afections ; he appeared to be 
struck with the wretchedness of the woman, and with some eager- 
ness asked her why she was crying. " I don't like to tell you, 
James," she said, " but if I must, I must ; and truth is, my children 
have not touched a morsel of anything this blessed day. As for 
me, never mind me; I must leave you to guess how it has fared 
with me. But not one morsel of food could I beg or buy for those 
children that lie on that bed before you ; and I am sure, James, it 
is better for us all we should die, and to my soul I wish we were 
dead." '-'Dead!" said James, starting up as if a flash of lightning 
had darted upon him; "dead, Sally! You and Mary and the (wo 
young ones dead? Look ye, my lass, you see what I am now — 
like a brute. I have wasted your substance — the curse of God 

13 



290 SEDUCTION. 

is upon me — I am drawing near to the pit of destruction — but 
there's an end; I feel there's an end. Give me that glass, wife." 
She gave it him with astonishment and fear. He turned it topsy- 
turvy ; and, striking the table with great violence, and flinging him- 
self on his knees, made a most solemn and affecting vow to God 
of repentance and sobriety. From that moment to the day of 
his death he drank no fermented liquor, but confined himself 
entirely to tea and waters I never saw so sudden and astonish- 
ing a change. His looks became healthy, his cottage neat, his 
children were clad, his wife was happy ; and twenty times the poor 
man and his wife, with tears in their eyes, have told me the story, 
and blessed the evening of the fourteenth of March, the day of 
James's restoration, and have shown me the glass he held in his 
hand when he made the vow of sobriety. It is all nonsense about 
not being able to work without ale, and gin, and cider, and fer- 
mented liquors. Do lions and cart-horses drink ale ? It is mere 
habit. If you have good nourishing food, you can do very well 
without ale. Nobody works harder than the Yorkshire people, and 
for years together there are many Yorkshire labourers who never 
taste ale. I have no objection, you will observe, to a moderate 
use of ale, or any other liquor you can afford to purchase. My 
objection is, that you cannot afford it ; that every penny you spend 
at the ale-house comes out of the stomachs of the poor children, 
and strips off the clothes of the wife. 

My dear little Nanny, don't believe a word he says. He merely 
means to ruin and deceive you. You have a plain answer to give : 
" When I am axed in the church, and the parson has read the 
service, and all about it is written down in the book, then I will 
listen to your nonsense, and not before." Am not I a Justice of 
the Peace ? and have not I had a hundred foolish girls brought 
before me, who have all come with the same story ? " Please, 
your worship, he is a false man; he promised me marriage over 
and over again." I confess I have often wished for the power of 
hanging these rural lovers. But what use is my wishing? All 
that can be done with the villain is to make him pay half a crown 
a week, and you are handed over to the poor-house, and to infamy. 
Will no example teach you ? Look to Mary Willet — three years 
ago the handsomest and best girl in the village, now a slattern in 
* A fact. — Author's Note. 



MR. SWING. 291 

the poor-house ! Look at Harriet Dobson, who trusted in the 
promises of James Harefield's son, and, after being abandoned by 
him, went away in despair with a party of soldiers. How can 
you be such a fool as to surrender your character to the stupid 
flattery of a ploughboy ? If the evening is pleasant, and birds sing, 
and flowers bloom, is that any reason why you are to forget God's 
Word, the happiness of your family, and your own character? 
What is a woman worth without character ? A profligate carpen- 
ter or a debauched watchmaker may gain business from his skill ; 
but how is a profligate woman to gain her bread? Who will 
receive her ? 

But this is enough of my parish advice. 



LETTER TO MR. SWING.* 

The wool your coat is made of is spun by machinery, and 
this machinery makes your coat two or three shillings cheaper — 
perhaps six or seven. Your white hat is made by machinery 
at half price. The coals you burn are pulled out of the pit by 
machinery, and are sold to you much cheaper than they could be 
if they were pulled out by hand. You do not complain of these 
machines, because they do you good, though they throw many 
artisans out of work. But what right have you to object to 
fanning machines, which make bread cheaper to the artisans, 
and to avail yourselves of other machines which make manufac- 
tures cheaper to you ? 

If all machinery were abolished, everything would be so dear 
that you would be tan times worse off than you now are. Poor 
people's cloth would get up to a guinea a yard. Hats could not 
be sold for less than eighteen shillings. Coals would be three 
shillings per hundred. It would be quite impossible for a poor 
man to obtain any comfort. 

If you begin to object to machinery in farming, you may as well 

* Lady Holland, in Memoir, p. 212, says : " There were at this time so many 
mischievous publications circulating among the people, and threatening letters 
bo frequently sent to my father and other gentlemen in the neighbourhood, 
that he though! it right to endeavour to counteract them, and published some 
cheap letters for circulation among the poor, called ' Letters to Swing,' of 
which this from the 'Taunton Courier' of Wednesday, Dee. 8th, 1830, haw 
been accidentally preserved." 



292 MAXIMS. 

object to a plough, because it employs fewer men than a spade. 
You may object to a harrow, because it employs fewer men than 
a rake. You may object even to a spade, because it employs 
fewer men than fingers and sticks, with which savages scratch the 
ground in Otaheite. If you expect manufacturers to turn against 
machinery, look at; the consequence. They may succeed, perhaps, 
in driving machinery out of the town they live in, but they often 
drive the manufacturer out of the town also. He sets up his 
trade in some distant part of the country, gets new men, and the 
disciples of Swing are left to starve in the scene of their violence 
and folly. In this way the lace manufacture travelled in the 
time of Ludd, Swing's grandfather, from Nottingham to Tiverton. 
Suppose a free importation of corn to be allowed, as it ought to be, 
and will be. If you will not allow farmers to grow corn here as 
cheap as they can, more corn will come from America ; for every 
thrashing-machine that is destroyed, more Americans will be 
employed, not more Englishmen. 

Swing ! Swing ! you are a stout fellow, but you are a bad 
adviser. The law is up, and the Judge is coming. Fifty persons 
in Kent are already transported, and will see their wives and 
children no more. Sixty persons will be hanged in Hampshire. 
There are two hundred for trial in Wiltshire — all scholars of 
Swing ! I am no farmer : I have not a machine bigger than a pep- 
permill. I am a sincere friend to the poor, and I think every man 
should live by his labour : but it cuts me to the very heart to see 
honest husbandmen perishing by that worst of all machines, the 
gallows — under the guidance of that most fatal of all leaders — 
Swing !" 



MAXIMS AND RULES OF LIFE.* 

Remember that every person, however low, has rights and 
feelings. In all contentions, let peace be rather your object, than 
triumph : value triumph only as the means of peace. 

* " These are extracts from such few portions of his diary as have been 
preserved, written at various times. These slight, unfinished fragments are 
not, of course, given as specimens of composition ; but they are, I think, of 
great value, as indicating the occupation and direction of his thoughts, and 
the wholesome training of his mind, in his leisure hours, and in solitude, of 



DIARY. 293 

Remember that your children, your wife, and your servants, 
have rights and feelings ; treat them as you would treat persons 
who could turn again. Apply these doctrines to the administration 
of justice as a magistrate. Rank poisons make good medicines ; 
error and misfortune may be turned into wisdom and improve- 
ment. 

Do not attempt to frighten children and inferiors by passion ; it 
does more harm to your own character than it does good to them ; 
the same thing is better done by firmness and persuasion. 

If you desire the common people to treat you as a gentleman, 
you must conduct yourself as a gentleman should do to them. 

When you meet with neglect, let it rouse you to exertion, in- 
stead of mortifying your pride. Set about lessening those defects 
which expose you to neglect, and improve those excellences which 
command attention and respect. 

Against general fears, remember how very precarious life is, 
take what care you will ; how short it is, last as long as it ever 
does. 

Rise early in the morning, not only to avoid self-reproach, but 
to make the most of the little life that remains ; not only to save 
the hours lost in sleep, but to avoid that languor which is spread 
over mind and body for the whole of that day in which you have 
lain late in bed. 

Passion gets less and less powerful after every defeat. Hus- 
band energy for the real demand which the dangers of life make 
upon it. 

Find fault, when you must find fault, in private, if possible ; 
and some time after the offence, rather than at the time. The 
blamed are less inclined to resist, when they are blamed without 
witnesses ; both parties are calmer, and the accused party is struck 
with the forbearance of the accuser, who has seen the fault, and 
watched for a private and proper time for mentioning it. 

My son writes me word he is unhappy at school. This makes 

which he seems to have felt the full value for the improvement of his char- 
acter. In one of his letters to Jeffrey about this period, he says : ' Living a 
great deal alone (as I now do) will, I believe, correct me of my faults, for a 
man can do without his own approbation in much society, but he must make 
great exertions to gain it when he is alone ; without it, I am convinced, soli- 
tude is not to be endured.'" — Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 113. 



294 REFLECTIONS. 

me unhappy ; but, 1st. There is much unhappiness in human life : 
how can school be exempt ? 2dly. Boys are apt to take a particular 
moment of depression for a general feeling, and they are in fact 
rarely unhappy; at the moment I write, perhaps he is playing 
about in the highest spirits. 3dly. When he comes to state his 
grievance, it will probably have vanished, or be so trifling, that it 
will yield to argument or expostulation. 4thly. At all events, if 
it is a real evil which makes him unhappy, I must find out what it 
is, and proceed to act upon it ; but I must wait till I can, either in 
person or by letter, find out what it is. 

Not only is religion calm and tranquil, but it has an extensive 
atmosphere round it, whose calmness and tranquillity must be pre- 
served, if you would avoid misrepresentation. 

Not only study that those with whom you live should habitually 
respect you, but cultivate such manners as will secure the respect 
of persons with whom you occasionally converse. Keep up the 
habit of being respected, and do not attempt to be more amusing 
and agreeable than is consistent with the preservation of respect. 

I am come to the age of seventy ; have attained enough reputa- 
tion to make me somebody : I should not like a vast reputation, it 
would plague me to death. I hope to care less for the outward 
world. 

Hope. 

Don't be too severe upon yourself and your own failings ; keep 
on, don't faint, be energetic to the last. 

If you wish to keep mind clear and body healthy, abstain from 
all fermented liquors. 

Fight against sloth, and do all you can to make friends. 

If old age is even a state of suffering, it is a state of superior 
wisdom, in which man avoids all the rash and foolish things he 
does in his youth, and which make life dangerous and painful. 

Death must be distinguished from dying, with which it is often 
confounded. 

Reverence and stand in awe of yourself. 

How Nature delights and amuses us by varying even the char- 
acter of insects ; the ill-nature of the wasp, the sluggishness of the 
drone, the volatility of the butterfly, the slyness of the bug. 

Take short views, hope for the best, and trust in God. 



PROGRESS OF SOCIETY. 295 

MODERN CHANGES.* 

" The good of ancient times let others state, 
I think it lucky I was born so late." 

Mr. Editor : It is of some importance at what period a man 
is born. A young man, alive at this period, hardly knows to what 
improvements of human life he has been introduced : and I would 
bring before his notice the following eighteen changes which have 
taken place in England, since I first began to breathe in it the 
breath of life — a period amounting now to nearly seventy-three 
years. 

Gas was unknown : I groped about the streets of London in all 
but the utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the protection 
of watchmen, in their grand climacteric, and exposed to every 
species of depredation and insult. 

I have been nine hours in sailing from Dover to Calais, before 
the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go from Taunton 
to Bath, before the invention of railroads, and I now go, in six 
hours, from Taunton to London ! In going from Taunton to Bath, 
I suffered between ten thousand and twelve thousand severe 
contusions, before stone-breaking Macadam was born. 

I paid fifteen pounds, in a single year, for repairs of carriage- 
springs on the pavement of London; and I now glide, without 
noise or fracture, on wooden pavements. 

I can walk, by the assistance of the police, from one end of 
London to the other, without molestation ; or, if tired, get into a 
cheap and active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels, which 
the hackney-coaches were at the beginning of my life. 

I had no umbrella ! They were little used, and very dear. 
There were no waterproof hats, and my hat has often been reduced 
by rains into its primitive pulp. 

I could not keep my smallclothes in their proper place, for 
braces were unknown. If I had the gout, there was no colchicum. 
If I was bilious, there was no calomel. If 1 was attacked by ague, 
there was no quinine. There were filthy coffeehouses instead of 
elegant clubs. Game could not be bought. Quarrels about un- 

* This is published in Longman's octavo edition of Sydney Smith's works. 
It was written for a London newspaper the year before the author's death. 



296 IMPROVEMENTS. 

commuted tithes were endless. The corruption of Parliament, 
before Reform, infamous. 

There were no banks to receive the savings of the poor. The 
Poor-Laws were gradually sapping the vitals of the country ; and 
whatever miseries I suffered, I had no post to whisk my complaints, 
for a single penny, to the remotest corners of the empire ; and 
yet, in spite of all these privations, I lived on quietly, and am now 
ashamed that I was not more discontented, and utterly surprised 
that all these changes and inventions did not occur two centuries 
ago. 

I forgot to add, that as the basket of stage-coaches, in which 
luggage was then carried, had no springs, your clothes were rubbed 
all to pieces ; and that, even in the best society, one third of the 
gentlemen, at least, were always drunk. 



PETER PLYMLEY. 297 



PASSAGES FROM PETER PLYMLEY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Dea.r Abraham: A worthier and better man than yourself 
does not exist ; but I have always told you, from the time of our 
boyhood, that you were a bit of a goose. Your parochial affairs 
are governed with exemplary order and regularity ; you are as 
powerful in the vestry as Mr. Perceval is in the House of Com- 
mons — and, I must say, with much more reason; nor do I know 
any church where the faces and smock-frocks of the congregation 
are so clean, or their eyes so uniformly directed to the preacher. 
There is another point upon which I will do you ample justice ; 
and that is, that the eyes so directed toward you are wide open ; 
for the rustic has, in general, good principles, though he cannot 
control his animal habits ; and however loud he may snore, his 
face is perpetually turned toward the fountain of orthodoxy. 

Having done you this act of justice, I shall proceed, according 
to our ancient intimacy and familiarity, to explain to you my 
opinions about the Catholics, and to reply to yours. 

In the first place, my sweet Abraham, the Pope is not landed, 
nor are there any curates sent out after him — nor has he been hid 
at St. Alban's by the Dowager Lady Spencer — nor dined pri- 
vately at Holland House — nor been seen near Dropmorcf If 
these fears exist (which I do not believe), they exist only in the 
mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; (hey emanate from his 
zeal for the Protestant interest; and though they reflect the high- 

.=* " Letters on the Subject of the Catholics, to My Brother Abraham, who 
lives in the Country/' By Peter Plymley. 

t The seat of Lord Grenvillc, who advocated concessions to the Catholics. 

13* 



298 BURNING AND HANGING. 

est honour upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must certainly 
be considered as more ambiguous proofs of the sanity and vigour 
of his understanding. By this time, however, the best-informed 
clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis are convinced that 
the rumour is without foundation ; and, though the Pope is proba- 
bly hovering about our coast in a fishing smack, it is most likely 
he will fall a prey to the vigilance of our cruisers ; and it is certain 
he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of our soil. 

Exactly in the same manner, the story of the wooden gods seized 
at Charing Cross, by an order from the Foreign Office, turns out 
to be without the shadow of a foundation ; instead of the angels 
and archangels, mentioned by the informer, nothing was discovered 
but a wooden image of Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham, as 
a head-peace for the Spanker gun-vessel ; it was an exact resem- 
blance of his lordship in his military uniform ; and therefore as 
little like a god as can well be imagined. 



CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT PERSECUTIONS. 

I found in your letter the usual remarks about fire, fagot, and 
bloody Mary. Are you aware, my dear priest, that there were as 
many persons put to death for religious opinions under the mild 
Elizabeth, as under the bloody Mary ? The reign of the former 
was, to be sure, ten times as long ; but I only mention the fact, 
merely to show you that something depends upon the age in which 
men five, as well as on their religious opinions. Three hundred 
years ago, men burned and hanged each other for these opinions. 
Time has softened Catholic as well as Protestant ; they both re- 
quired it, though each perceives only his own improvement, and is 
blind to that of the other. We are all the creatures of circum- 
stances. I know not a kinder and better man than yourself; but you 
(if you had lived in those times) would certainly have roasted your 
Catholic ; and I promise you, if the first exciter of this religious 
mob had been as powerful then as he is now, you would soon have 
been elevated to the mitre. I do not go the length of saying that 
the world has suffered as much from Protestant as from Catholic 
persecution ; far from it ; but you should remember the Catholics 
had all the power, when the idea first started up in the world, that 
there could be two modes of faith ; and that it was much more 



EXCLUSIVENESS. 299 

natural that they should attempt to crush this diversity of opinion 
by great and cruel efforts, than that the Protestants should rage 
against those who differ from them, when the very basis of their 
system was complete freedom in all spiritual matters. 



THE CHURCH IN DANGER. 

The English, I believe, are as truly religious as any nation in 
Europe ; I know no greater blessing ; but it carries with it this 
evil in its train, that any villain who will bawl out a The church is 
in danger !" may get a place, and a good pension ; and that any 
administration who will do the same thing, may bring a set of men 
into power who, at a moment of stationary and passive piety, would 
be hooted by the very boys in the streets. But it is not all re- 
ligion ; it is, in great part, that narrow and exclusive spirit, which 
delights to keep the common blessings of sun, and air, and freedom, 
from other human beings. " Your religion has always been de- 
graded ; you are in the dust, and I will take care you never rise 
again. I should enjoy less the possession of an earthly good, by 
every additional person to whom it was extended." You may not 
be aware of it yourself, most reverend Abraham, but you deny their 
freedom to the Catholics upon the same principle that Sarah your 
wife refuses to give the receipt for a ham or a gooseberry dump- 
ling ; she values her receipts, not because they secure to her a cer- 
tain flavour, but because they remind her that her neighbours want 
it — a feeling laughable in a priestess, shameful in a priest ; venial 
when it withholds the blessings of a ham, tyrannical and execrable 
when it narrows the boon of religious freedom. 



A GOOD MAN AND BAD MINISTER. 

You spend a great deal of ink about the character of the present 
Prime Minister. Grant you all that you write ; I say, I fear he 
will ruin Ireland, and pursue a line of policy destructive to (lie true 
interest of his country: and then you tell me be is faithful to Mrs. 
Perceval, and kind to the Master Fercevals ! These are, undoubt- 
edly, the first qualifications to be looked to in a time of the most 
serious public danger ; but somehow or another (if public and pri- 



300 RELIGIOUS FIGHTING TEST. 

vate virtue must always be incompatible), I should prefer that he 
destroyed the domestic happiness of Wood or Cockell, owed for 
the veal of the preceding year, whipped his boys, and saved his 
country. 



SOLDIERS AND THEOLOGY. 

What is it the Catholics ask of you ?* Do not exclude us from 
the honours and emoluments of the state, because we worship God 
in one way, and you worship him in another — in a period of the 
deepest peace, and the fattest prosperity, this would be a fair re- 
quest ; it should be granted, if Lord Hawkesbury f had reached 
Paris, if Mr. Canning's interpreter had threatened the Senate in 
an opening speech, or Mr. Perceval explained to them the improve- 
ments he meant to introduce into the Catholic religion ; but to deny 
the Irish this justice now, in the present state of Europe, and in 
the summer months, just as the season for destroying kingdoms is 
coming on, is (beloved Abraham), whatever you may think of it, 
little short of positive insanity. 

Here is a frigate attacked by a corsair of immense strength and 
size, rigging cut, masts in danger of coming by the board, four fee* 
water in the hold, men dropping off very fast ; in this dreadful sit- 
uation how do you think the captain acts (whose name shall be 
Perceval) ? He calls all hands upon deck ; talks to them of king, 
country, glory, sweethearts, gin, French prisons, wooden shoes, 
old England, and hearts of oak ; they give three cheers, rush to 
their guns, and after a tremendous conflict, succeed in beating off 
the enemy. Not a syllable of all this ; this is not the manner in 
which the honourable commander goes to work ; the first thing he 
does is to secure twenty or thirty of his prime sailors, who happen 
to be Catholics, to clap them in irons, and set over them a guard 
of as many Protestants ; having taken this admirable method of 
defending himself against his infidel opponents, he goes upon deck, 
reminds the sailors, in a very bitter harangue, that they are of 
different religions ; exhorts the Episcopal gunner not to trust to 

* A Catholic Naval and Military Service Bill, allowing Catholics to hold 
commissions in the army and navy, was under discussion in Parliament. 

t The " lesser of the two Jenkinsons," soon after (on the death of his fa- 
ther) Lord Liverpool. He was Home Secretary at the date of the Plymley 
Letters, 



THE CLAPHAMITES. 301 

the Presbyterian quarter-master; issues positive orders that the 
Catholics should be fired at upon the first appearance of discontent; 
rushes through blood and brains, examining his men in the cate- 
chism and thirty-nine articles, and positively forbids every one to 
sponge or ram who has not taken the sacrament according to the 
Church of England. Was it right to take out a captain made of 
excellent British stuff, and to put in such a man as this ? Is not 
he more like a parson, or a talking lawyer, than a thorough-bred 
seaman ? And built as she is of heart of oak, and admirably 
manned, is it possible, with such a captain, to save this ship from 
going to the bottom ? 



MR. CANNING AND HIS PARASITES. 

Nature descends down to infinite smallness. Mr. Canning has 
his parasites ; and if you take a large buzzing blue-bottle fly, and 
look at it in a microscope, you may see twenty or thirty little ugly 
insects crawling about it, which doubtless think their fly to be the 
bluest, grandest, merriest, most important animal in the universe, 
and are convinced the world would be at an end if it ceased to 
buzz. 



SUBSTITUTE THE CLAPHAMITES FOR THE CATHOLICS. 

I admit there is a vast luxury in selecting a particular set of 
Christians, and in worrying them as a boy worries a puppy-dog ; 
it is an amusement in which all the young English are brought up 
from their earliest days. I like the idea of saying to men who use 
a different hassock from me, that till they change their hassock, 
they shall never be colonels, aldermen, or parliament-men. While 
I am gratifying my personal insolence respecting religious forms, 
I fondle myself into an idea that I am religious, and that I am do- 
ing my duty in the most exemplary (as I certainly am in the most 
easy) way. But then, my good Abraham, this sport, admirable as 
it is, is become, with Respect to the Catholics, a little dangerous; 
and if we are not extremely careful in taking the amusement, we 
shall tumble into the holy water, and be drowned. As it seems 
necessary to your idea of an established church to have somebody 
to worry and torment, suppose we were to select for this purpose 



302 MR. HAWKINS BROWN. 

William Wilberforce, Esq., and the patent Christians of Clapham.* 
We shall by this expedient enjoy the same opportunity for cruelty 
and injustice, without being exposed to the same risks ; we will 
compel them to abjure vital clergymen by a public test, to deny 
that the said William Wilberforce has any power of working mir- 
acles, touching for barrenness or any other infirmity, or that he is 
endowed with any preternatural gift whatever. We will swear 
them to the doctrine of good works, compel them to preach com- 
mon sense, and to hear it ; to frequent bishops, deans, and other 
high churchmen ; and to appear (once in the quarter at the least) 
at some melodrame, opera, pantomime, or other light scenical rep- 
resentation ; in short, we will gratify the love of insolence and 
power ; we will enjoy the old orthodox sport of witnessing the im- 
potent anger of men compelled to submit to civil degradation, or to 
sacrifice their notions of truth to ours. And all this we may do 
without the slightest risk, because their numbers are (as yet) not 
very considerable. Cruelty and injustice must, of course, exist ; 
but why connect them with danger? Why torture a bull-dog 
when you can get a frog or a rabbit ? I am sure my proposal will 
meet with the most universal approbation. Do not be apprehen- 
sive of any opposition from ministers. If it is a case of hatred, we 
are sure that one man will defend it by the Gospel ; if it abridges 
human freedom, we know that another will find precedents for it 
in the Revolution. 



MR. ISAAC HAWKINS BROWN. 

Then comes Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown (the gentleman who 
danced so badly f at the court of Naples), and asks, if it is not an 

* " The Clapham Sect" is the subject of an eloquent article by James 
Stephen, in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1844. The designation was 
given to an eminent circle of friends — " men whom the second generation of 
the Evangelical party acknowledged as their secular chiefs" — who met at 
the villas at Clapham, in the neighbourhood of London, occupied by Henry 
Thornton, William Wilberforce, and Granville Sharpe. Thomas Clarkson, 
Zachary Macaulay (father of the historian), Mr. Stephen (father of the re- 
viewer), Isaac Miiner, Dean of Carlisle, and Charles Simeon of Cambridge, 
were honoured members of the society to which Perceval the minister, " the 
evangelical Perceval," as Smith styles him, was also, in a measure, attached. 

t In the third year of his present majesty, and in the thirtieth of his own 



SCOTLAND. 303 

anomaly to educate men in another religion than your own ? It 
certainly is our duty to get rid of error, and above all, of religious 
error ; but this is not to be done per saltmn, or the measure will 
miscarry, like the queen. It may be very easy to dance away the 
royal embryo of a great kingdom f but Mr. Hawkins Brown, must 
look before he leaps, when his object is to crush an opposite sect in 
religion ; false steps aid the one effect as much as they are fatal to 
the other; it will require not only the lapse of Mr. Hawkins 
Brown, but the lapse of centuries, before the absurdities of the 
Catholic religion are laughed at as much as they deserve to be ; 
but surely, in the meantime, the Catholic religion is better than 
none ; four millions of Catholics are better than four millions of 
wild beasts ; two hundred priests, educated by our own govern- 
ment, are better than the same number educated by the man who 
means to destroy us. 



EXAMPLE OF SCOTLAND. 

If the great mass of the people, environed as they are on every 
side with Jenkinsons, Percevals, Melvilles, and other perils, were 
to pray for Divine illumination and aid, what more could Provi- 
dence in its mercy do than send them the example of Scotland ? 
For what a length of years was it attempted to compel the Scotch 
to change their religion ? horse, foot, artillery, and armed preben- 
daries, were sent out after the Presbyterian parsons and their con- 
gregations. The Percevals of those days called for blood ; this 
call is never made in vain, and blood was shed ; but, to the aston- 
ishment and horror of the Percevals of those days, they could not 
introduce the Book of Common Prayer, nor prevent that meta- 
physical people from going to heaven their true way, instead of 
our true way. With a little oatmeal for food, and a little sulphur 
for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation witli the one hand, and 

age, Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown, then upon his travels, danced one evening 
at the court of Naples. His dress was a volcano silk witli lava buttons. 
Whether (as the Neapolitan wits said) he had studied dancing under St. Vi- 
tus, or whether David, dancing in a linen vest, was his model, is not known ; 
but Mr. Brown danced with such inconceivable alacrity and vigour, that he 
threw the Queen of Naples into convulsions of Laughter, which terminated in 
a miscarriage, and changed the dynasty of the Neapolitan throne. — Author's 
Note. 



304 ENGLAND INVADED. 

holding his Calvinistical Creed in the other, Sawney ran away to 
his flinty hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened 
to his sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing mel- 
ancholy of the tallest thistles. But Sawney brought up his un- 
breeched offspring in a cordial hatred of his oppressors ; and Scot- 
land was as much a part of the weakness of England then as 
Ireland is at this moment. The true and the only remedy was 
applied ; the Scotch were suffered to worship God after then' own 
tiresome manner, without pain, penalty, and privation. No light- 
nings descended from heaven ; the country was not ruined ; the 
world is not yet come to an end ; the dignitaries, who foretold all 
these consequences, are utterly forgotten ; and Scotland has ever 
since been an increasing source of strength to Great Britain. In 
the six hundredth year of our empire over Ireland, we are making 
laws to transport a man, if he is found out of his house after 
eight o'clock at night. That this is necessary, I know too well ; 
but tell me why it is necessary ? It is not necessary in Greece 
where the Turks are masters. 



ENGLAND IN AN INVASION. 

You cannot imagine, you say, that England will ever be ruined 
and conquered ; and for no other reason that I can find, but be- 
cause it seems so very odd it should be ruined and conquered. 
Alas ! so reasoned, in their time, the Austrian, Russian, and Prus- 
sian Plymleys. But the English are brave ; so were all these 
nations. You might get together a hundred thousand men in- 
dividually brave ; but without generals capable of commanding 
such a machine, it would be as useless as a first-rate man-of-war 
manned by Oxford clergyman or Parisian shopkeepers. I do not 
say this to the disparagement of English officers ; they have had 
no means of acquiring experience ; but I do say it to create alarm ; 
for we do not appear, to me, to be half alarmed enough, or to en- 
tertain that sense of our danger which leads to the most obvious 
means of self-defence. As for the spirit of the peasantry, in 
making a gallant defence behind hedge-rows, and through plate- 
racks and hen-coops, highly as I think of their bravery, I do not 
know any nation in Europe so likely to be struck with panic as 
the English ; and this from their total unacquaintance with the 



HEROICS. 305 

science of war. Old wheat and beans blazing for twenty miles 
round ; cart mares shot ; sows of Lord Somerville's* breed run- 
ning wild over the country ; the minister of the parish wounded 
sorely in his hinder parts ; Mrs. Plymley in fits ; all these scenes 
of war an Austrian or a Russian has seen three or four times ; but 
it is now three centuries since an English pig has fallen in a fair 
battle upon English ground, or a farmhouse been rifled, or a clergy- 
man's wife been subjected to any other proposals of love than the 
connubial endearments of her sleek and orthodox mate. The old 
edition of Plutarch's Lives, which lies in the corner of your par- 
lour window, has contributed to work you up to the most romantic 
expectations of our Roman behaviour. You are persuaded that 
Lord Amherst will defend Kew Bridge like Codes ; that some 
maid of honour will break away from her captivity, and swim over 
the Thames ; that the Duke of York will burn his capitulating 
hand ; and little Mr. Sturges Bournef give forty years' purchase for 
Moulsham Hall, while the French are encamped upon it. I hope 
we shall witness all this, if the French do come ; but, in the mean- 
time, I am so enchanted with the ordinary English behaviour of 
these invaluable persons, that I earnestly pray no opportunity may 
be given them for Roman valour, and for those very un-Roman 
pensions which they would all, of course, take especial care to 
claim in consequence. But whatever was our conduct, if every 
ploughman was as great a hero as he who was called from his oxen 
to save Rome from her enemies, I should still say, that at such a 
crisis you want the affections of all your subjects in both islands ; 
there is no spirit which you must alienate, no heart you must avert ; 
every man must feel he has a country, and that there is an urgent 
and pressing cause why he should expose himself to death. 

=* John, fifteenth Lord Somerville, 17G5-1819. He was eminent for hid 
interest in agricultural affairs, and the author of several publications on those 
subjects. His family residence was in Somersetshire, but he had a seat on 
the Tweed, near Abbotsford, where he enjoyed the warm friendship of Sir 
"Walter Scott, who called him, his "master in the art of planting." Scott 
edited the family history, " The Memoric of the Somcrvilles," of which 
Lockhart says : "as far as I know, the best of its class in any language." 

t There is nothing more objectionable in Plymley's Letters, than the abuse 
of Mr. Sturges Bourne, who is an honourable, able, and excellent person; 
but such are the malevolent effects of party spirit. — Author's Note. Sturges 
Bourne, the protege and political friend of Canning, had, at several times, a 
seat in the cabinet. He died in 1845, at the age of seventy-six. 



306 RED-HAIRED MEN. 

IDLE FEARS OF POPERY. 

As for the enormous wax candles, and superstitious mummeries, 
and painted jackets of the Catholic priests, I fear them not. Tell 
me that the world will return again under the influence of the 
small-pox ; that Lord Castlereagh will hereafter oppose the power 
of the court ; that Lord Ho wick* and Mr. Grattan will do each 
of them a mean and dishonourable action ; that anybody who has 
heard Lord Redesdalef speak once will knowingly and willingly 
hear him again ; that Lord Eldon has assented to the fact of two 
and two making four, without shedding tears, or expressing the 
smallest doubt or scruple ; tell me any other thing absurd or in- 
credible, but, for the love of common sense, let me hear no more 
of the danger to be apprehended from the general diffusion of 
Popery. It is too absurd to be reasoned upon ; every man feels 
it is nonsense when he hears it stated, and so does every man 
while he is stating it. 



A RED-HAIR DISQUALIFICATION. 

I have often thought, if the wisdom of our ancestors had 
excluded all persons with red hair from the House of Commons, 
of the throes and convulsions it would occasion to restore them to 
their natural rights. What mobs and riots would it produce ? To 
what infinite abuse and obloquy would the capillary patriot be 
exposed ? what wormwood would distil from Mr. Perceval, what 
froth would drop from Mr. Canning; how (I will not say my, 
but oar Lord Hawkesbury, for he belongs to us all), how our 
Lord Hawkesbury would work away about the hair of King 
William and Lord Somers, and the authors of the great and 
glorious Revolution; how Lord Eldon would appeal to the 
Deity and his own virtues, and to the hair of his children: 
some would say that red-haired men were superstitious ; some 
would prove they were atheists ; they would be petitioned against 
as the friends of slavery, and the advocates for revolt ; in short, 
such a corrupter of the heart and the understanding is the spirit 

# Afterward Earl Grey. 

t John Mitford, Lord Kedesdale, brother of Mitford the historian of 
Greece, was Lord-High- Chancellor of Ireland; raised to the Peerage in 1802. 
He died in 1830, at the age of eighty-one. 



STORY OF A TILLAGE. 307 

of persecution, that these unfortunate people (conspired against by 
their fellow-subjects of every complexion), if they did not emigrate 
to countries where hair of another colour was persecuted, would 
be driven to the falsehood of perukes, or the hypocrisy of the 
Tricosian fluid. 



THE CATHOLICS ASKING FOR MORE AN APOLOGUE. 

What amuses me the most is, to hear of the indulgences which 
the Catholics have received, and their exorbitance in not being 
satisfied with those indulgences : now if you complain to me that 
a man is obtrusive and shameless in his requests, and that it is 
impossible to bring him to reason, I must first of all hear the 
whole of your conduct toward him ; for you may have taken from 
him so much in the first instance, that, in spite of a long series of 
restitution, a vast latitude for petition may still remain behind. 

There is a village (no matter where) in which the inhabitants, 
on one day in the year, sit down to a dinner prepared at the com- 
mon expense ; by an extraordinary piece of tyranny (which Lord 
Hawkesbury would call the wisdom of the village ancestors), the 
inhabitants of three of the streets, about a hundred years ago, seized 
upon the inhabitants of the fourth street, bound them hand and 
foot, laid them upon their backs, and compelled them to look on 
while the rest were stuffing themselves with beef and beer ; the 
next year, the inhabitants of the persecuted street (though they 
contributed an equal quota of the expense) were treated precisely 
in the same manner. The tyranny grew into a custom ; and (as 
the manner of our nature is) it was considered as the most sacred 
of all duties to keep these poor fellows without their annual 
dinner ; the village was so tenacious of this practice, that nothing 
could induce them to resign it ; every enemy to it was looked upon 
as a disbeliever in Divine Providence, and any nefarious church- 
warden who wished to succeed in his election had nothing to do 
but to represent his antagonist as an abolitionist, in order to frus- 
trate his ambition, endanger his life, and throw the village into a 
state of the most dreadful commotion. By degrees, however, the 
obnoxious street grew to be so well-peopled, and its inhabitants so 
firmly united, that their oppressors, more afraid of injustice, were 
more disposed to be just. At the next dinner they are unbound, 



308 A SHAKE OF THE DINNER. 

the year after allowed to sit upright, then a bit of bread and a 
glass of water ; till at last, after a long series of concessions, they 
are emboldened to ask, in pretty plain terms, that they may be 
allowed to sit down at the bottom of the table, and to fill their 
bellies as well as the rest. Forthwith a general cry of shame and 
scandal : " Ten years ago, were you not laid upon your backs ? 
Don't you remember what a great thing you thought it to get a 
piece of bread? How thankful you were for cheese-parings? 
Have you forgotten that memorable era, when the lord of the 
manor interfered to obtain for you a slice of the public pudding ? 
And now, with an audacity only equalled by your ingratitude, you 
have the impudence to ask for knives and forks, and to request, 
in terms too plain to be mistaken, that you may sit down to table 
with the rest, and be indulged even with beef and beer : there are 
not more than half a dozen dishes which we have reserved for 
ourselves ; the rest has been thrown open to you in the utmost 
profusion ; you have potatoes, and carrots, suet-dumplings, sops in 
the pan, and delicious toast and water, in incredible quantities. 
Beef, mutton, lamb, pork, and veal, are ours ; and if you were not 
the most restless and dissatisfied of human beings, you would 
never think of aspiring to enjoy them." 

Is not this, my dainty Abraham, the very nonsense, and the very 
insult, which is talked to and practised upon the Catholics ? You 
are surprised that men who have tasted of partial justice, should 
ask for perfect justice ; that he who has been robbed of coat and 
cloak will not be contented with the restitution of one of his gar- 
ments. He would be a very lazy blockhead if he were content, 
and I (who, though an inhabitant of the village, have preserved, 
thank God, some sense of justice) most earnestly counsel these 
half-fed claimants to persevere in their just demands, till they are 
admitted to a more complete share of a dinner for which they pay 
as much as the others ; and if they see a little attenuated lawyer 
squabbling at the head of their opponents, let them desire him to 
empty his pockets, and to pull out all the pieces of duck, fowl, and 
pudding, which he has filched from the public feast to carry home 
to his wife and children. 



GEORGE CANNING. 309 

CANNING. 

Dear Abraham: In the correspondence which is passing 
- between us, you are perpetually alluding to the foreign secretary ; 
and in answer to the dangers of Ireland which I am pressing 
upon your notice, you have nothing to urge but the confidence 
which you repose in the discretion and sound sense of this gentle- 
man. I can only say, that I have listened to him long and often, 
with the greatest attention ; I have used every exertion in my 
power to take a fair measure of him, and it appears to me impos- 
sible to hear him upon any arduous topic without perceiving that 
he is eminently deficient in those solid and serious qualities upon 
which, and upon which alone, the confidence of a great country 
can properly repose. He sweats and labours, and works for 
sense, and Mr. Ellis* seems always to think it is coming, but it 
does not come; the machine can't draw up what is not to be found 
in the spring ; Providence has made him a light, jesting, para- 
graph-writing man, and that he will remain to his dying day. 
When he is jocular he is strong, when he is serious he is like 
Samson in a wig; any ordinary person is a match for him; a song, 
an ironical letter, a burlesque ode, an attack in the newspaper 
upon Nicoll's eye, a smart speech of twenty minutes, full of gross 
misrepresentations and clever turns, excellent language, a spirited 
manner, lucky quotation, success in provoking dull men, some half 
information picked up in Pall Mall in the morning ; these are your 
friend's natural weapons ; all these things he can do ; here I allow 
him to be truly great ; nay, I will be just, and go still farther, if 
he would confine himself to these things, and consider the facete 
and the playful to be the basis of his character, he would, for that 
species of man, be universally regarded as a person of "a very good 
understanding; call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor 
of the affairs of a great nation, and it seems to me as absurd as if 
a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That lie is an ex- 
traordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of (lie highest 
lustre, I do most readily admit. After George Sehvyn, and per- 
haps Tickell,t there has been no such man for this half century. 

* George Ellis, Editor of the Early English Poets and Metrical Romances, 

an associate of Canning in the poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, and his warm 
friend through life. % 

t Richard Tickell is less known than Sehvyn to readers of the present 



310 VIGOUR. 

The foreign secretary is a gentleman, a respectable as well as a 
highly agreeable man in private life ; but you may as well feed me 
with decayed potatoes as console me for the miseries of Ireland by 
the resources of his sense and his discretion. It is only the public 
situation which this gentleman holds which entitles me or induces 
me to say so much about him. He is a fly in amber ; nobody cares 
about the fly : the only question is, How the devil did it get there ? 
Nor do I attack him from the love of glory, but from the love of 
utility, as a burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it 
should flood a province.* 



VIGOUR IN IRELAND. 

I cannot describe the horror and disgust which I felt at 
hearing Mr. Perceval call upon the then ministry for measures of 
vigour in Ireland. If I lived at Hampstead upon stewed meats 
and claret; if I walked to church every Sunday before eleven 
young gentlemen of my own begetting, with, their faces washed, 
and their hair pleasingly combed; if the Almighty had blessed 
me with every earthly comfort — how awfully would I pause be- 

day. He was brother-in-law of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and the grandson 
of Addison's friend and associate in the Spectator. He was patronized by 
Lord North, wrote " Anticipation," a parody on the speeches at the opening 
of Parliament and a satire of the opposition, some other squibs of the kind, 
and two plays which have given him a niche in the Biographia Dramatica. 

* Set a wit to catch a wit ! This character of Canning seems scant meas- 
ure from the mirthful Plymley. The ' fly' was destined for a more precious 
bit of amber in the national annals. But no one will be content with history 
or biography in a single political skirmish. Canning's witty effusions were 
freely scattered in society. The chief monument of them which remains are 
his brilliant contributions with his old friend of the microcosm, Frere, and 
others, to the poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. Sydney Smith, by the way, in a 
passage from the Edinburgh Review (ante p. 160) speaks of Canning as an 
Irishman. He was of Irish parentage and " accidentally," as he himself said, 
born in London. His father, however, at the time of his marriage had been 
a number of years a resident in the British metropolis, where among other oc- 
cupations he had sustained with some ability the part of a literary adven- 
turer. He wrote poems and a political pamphlet, " On the Connection be- 
tween Great Britain and her American Colonies," in the " general manner" 
of which Mr. Robert Bell finds traces of " a curious resemblance to some pe- 
culiarities in the style of George Canning the son." — (Life of Canning, 
chapter i.) 



SLOTH. 311 

fore I sent forth the flame and the sword over the cabins of the 
poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of Ireland ! How 
easy it is to shed human blood — how easy it is to persuade our- 
selves that it is our duty to do so — and that the decision has cost 
us a severe struggle — how much, in all ages, have wounds and 
shrieks and tears been the cheap vulgar resources of the rulers of 
mankind — how difficult and how noble it is to govern in kindness, 
and to found an empire upon the everlasting basis of justice and 
affection ! — But what do men call vigour ? To let loose hussars 
and to bring up artillery, to govern with lighted matches, and to 
cut, and push, and prime — I call this, not vigour, but the sloth of 
cruelty and ignorance. The vigour I love consists in finding out 
wherein subjects are aggrieved, in relieving them, in studying the 
temper and genius of a people, in consulting their prejudices, in 
selecting proper persons to lead and manage them, in the labori- 
ous, watchful, and difficult task of increasing public happiness by 
allaying each particular discontent. In this way Hoche pacified 
La Vendee — and in this way only will Ireland ever be subdued. 
But this, in the eyes of Mr. Perceval, is imbecility and meanness ; 
houses are not broken open — women are not insulted — the 
people seem all to be happy ; they are not rode over by horses, 
and cut by whips. Do you call this vigour? — Is this govern- 
ment? 



GOD SAVE THE KING. 

Do not imagine, by these observations, that I am not loyal ; 
without joining in the common cant of the best of kings, I respect 
the king most sincerely as a good man. His religion is better 
than the religion of Mr. Perceval, his old morality very superior 
to the old morality of Mr. Canning, and I am quite certain he has 
a safer understanding than both of them put together. Loyalty, 
within the bounds of reason and moderation, is one of the great 
instruments of English happiness; but the love of the king may 
easily become more strong than the love of the kingdom, and we 
may lose sight of the public welfare in our exaggerated admiration 
of him who is appointed to reign only for its promotion and sup- 
port. I detest Jacobinism ; and if I am doomed to be a slave at 
all, I would rather be the slave of a king than a cobler. God 



312 CONQUEST AND CONSTIPATION. 

save the king, you say, warms your heart like the sound of a 
trumpet. I cannot make use of so violent a metaphor ; but I am 
delighted to hear it, when it is the cry of genuine affection ; I am 
delighted to hear it, when they hail not only the individual man, 
but the outward and living sign of all English blessings. These 
are noble feelings, and the heart of every good man must go with 
them ; but God save the king, in these times, too often means God 
save my pension and my place, God give my sisters an allowance 
out of the privy purse — make me clerk of the irons, let me 
survey the meltings, let me live upon the fruits of other men's 
industry, and fatten upon the plunder of the public. 



MEDICAL STATESMANSHIP. 

What is it possible to say to such a man as the gentleman of 
Hampstead, who really believes it feasible to convert the four 
million Irish Catholics to the Protestant religion, and considers 
this as the best remedy for the disturbed state of Ireland ? It is 
not possible to answer such a man with arguments ; we must come 
out against him with beads, and a cowl, and push him into a 
hermitage. It is really such trash, that it is an abuse of the priv- 
ilege of reasoning to reply to it. Such a project is well worthy 
the statesman who would bring the French to reason by keeping 
them without rhubarb, and exhibit to mankind the awful spectacle 
of a nation deprived of neutral salts. This is not the dream of 
a wild apothecary indulging in his own opium ; this is not the 
distempered fancy of a pounder of drugs, delirious from small- 
ness of profits ; but it is the sober, deliberate, and systematic scheme 
of a man to whom the public safety is intrusted, and whose 
appointment is considered by many as a masterpiece of political 
sagacity. What a sublime thought, that no purge can now be 
taken between the Weser and the Garonne; that the bustling- 
pestle is still, the canorous mortar mute, and the bowels of mankind 
locked up for fourteen degrees of latitude ! When, I should be 
curious to know, were all the powers of crudity and flatulence 
fully explained to his majesty's ministers? At what period was 
this great plan of conquest and constipation fully developed ? In 
whose mind was the idea of destroying the pride and the plasters 
of France first engendered ? Without castor oil they might, for 



BOURBON AND BOLUS. 313 

some months, to be sure, have carried on a lingering war ; but can 
they do without bark ? Will the people live under a government 
where antimonial powders cannot be procured ? Will they bear 
the loss of mercury ? " There's the rub." Depend upon it, the 
absence of the materia medica will soon bring them to their senses, 
and the cry of Bourbon and bolus burst forth from the Baltic to 
the Mediterranean.* 

* Napier, in his History of the War in the Peninsula (book xiv.) says 
of Perceval's administration: "Narrow, harsh, factious, and illiberal, in 
everything relating to public matters, this man's career was one of unmixed 
evil. His bigotry taught him to oppress Ireland, but his religion did not de- 
ter him from passing a law to prevent the introduction of medicines into 
France during a pestilence/' A further discussion of Perceval's " Jesuit's 
Bark Bill," with citations of contemporary orators and writers — strengthen- 
ing Smith's attack — will be found among Napier's appendices. 

14 



814 AN APOLOGUE. 



REFORM SPEECHES. 



A COUNTRY PROSPEROUS IN SPITE OF POLITICAL EVILS.* 

They tell you, gentlemen, that you have grown rich and power- 
ful with these rotten boroughs, and that it would be madness to 
part with them, or to alter a constitution which had produced such 
happy effects. There happens, gentlemen, to live near my par- 
sonage, a labouring man of very superior character and under- 
standing to his fellow-labourers ; and who has made such good use 
of that superiority, that he has saved what is (for Ins station in life) 
a very considerable sum of money, and if his existence is extended 
to the common period, he will die rich. It happens, however, that 
he is (and long has been) troubled with violent stomachic pains, 
for which he has hitherto obtained no relief, and which really are 
the bane and torment of his life. Now, if my excellent labourer 
were to send for a physician, and to consult him respecting this 
malady, would it not be very singular language if our doctor were 
to say to him, " My good friend, you surely will not be so rash as 
to attempt to get rid of these pains in your stomach. Have you 
not grown rich with these pains in your stomach ? have not you risen 
under them from poverty to prosperity ? has not your situation, 
since you were first attacked, been improving every year ? You 
surely will not be so foolish and so indiscreet as to part with the pains 
in your stomach ?" — Why, what would be the answer of the rustic 
to this nonsensical monition ? " Monster of rhubarb !" he would say, 
" I am not rich in consequence of the pains in my stomach, but in 
spite of the pains in my stomach ; and I should have been ten times 
richer, and fifty times happier, if I had never had any pains in my 

* From a speech on the Reform Bill, at Taunton. 



REFORM. 315 

stomach at all." Gentlemen, these rotten boroughs are your pains 
in the stomach — and you would have been a much richer and 
greater people if you had never had them at all. Your wealth and 
your power have been owing, not to the debased and corrupted 
parts of the House of Commons, but to the many independent and 
honourable members whom it has always contained within its 
walls. If there had been a few more of these very valuable mem- 
bers for close boroughs, we should, I verily believe, have been by 
this time about as free as Denmark, Sweden, or the Germanized 
states of Italy. 



SPEECH AT TAUNTON.* 

Mr. Bailiff, I have spoken so often on this subject, that I am 
sure both you and the gentlemen here present will be obliged to 
me for saying but little, and that favour I am as willing to confer 
as you can be to receive it. I feel most deeply the event which 
has taken place, because, by putting the two houses of Parliament 
in collision with each other, it will impede the public business, and 
diminish the public prosperity. I feel it as a churchman, because 
I cannot but blush to see so many dignitaries of the church arrayed 
against the wishes and happiness of the people. I feel it more 
than all, because I believe it will sow the seeds of deadly hatred 
between the aristocracy and the great mass of the people. The 
loss of the bill I do not feel, and for the best of all possible reasons 
— because I have not the slightest idea that it is lost. I have no 
more doubt, before the expiration of the winter, that this bill will 
pass, than I have that the annual tax bills will pass, and greater 
certainty than this no man can have, for Franklin tells us there 
are but two things certain in this world — death and taxes. As 
for the possibility of the House of Lords preventing, ere long, a 
reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most absurd notion that 
ever entered into human imagination. I do not mean to be dis- 
respectful, but the attempt of the lords to stop the progress of re- 
form, reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, 
and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occa- 
sion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that 
town — the tide rose to an incredible height — the waves rushed in 
* Reported in the Taunton Courier, Oct. 12, 1831. 



316 MRS. PARTINGTON. 

upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. 
In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, 
who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house, with 
mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, 
and vigourously pushing away the Atlantic ocean. The Atlantic 
was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up ; but I need not tell 
you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. 
Partington. She was excellent at a slop, or a puddle, but she 
should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your 
ease — be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington.* 

They tell you, gentlemen, in the debates by which we have been 
lately occupied, that the bill is not justified' by experience. I do 
not think this true, but if it were true, nations are sometimes com- 
pelled to act without experience for their guide, and to trust to 
their own sagacity for the anticipation of consequences. The in- 
stances where this country has been compelled thus to act have 
been so eminently successful, that I see no cause for fear, even if 
we were acting in the manner imputed to us by our enemies. What 
precedents and what experience were there at the Reformation, 
when the country, with one unanimous effort, pushed out the Pope, 
and his grasping and ambitious clergy? — What experience, when, 
at the Revolution, we drove away our ancient race of kings, and 

* Did Sydney Smith invent Mrs. Partington ? A communication in Notes 
and Queries (Nov. 18, 1850), may seem to establish Mrs. Partington as a 
real personage, but the evidence is not conclusive. The writer says, the ori- 
ginal Mrs. P. was a respectable old lady, living at Sidmouth, in Devon- 
shire, and her encounter with the ocean, when mop and broom failed, and she 
was driven to take refuge in the second story of her cottage on the beach, oc- 
curred, to the best of his recollection, during an awful storm in November, 
1824, when some fifty or sixty ships were lost at Plymouth. He well recol- 
lects, he adds, reading in the Devonshire newspapers of the time, an account 
of Mrs. Partington ; but he may have read only Smith's speech, which he 
wrongly ascribes to Lord Brougham. 

Mrs. Partington has acquired additional celebrity by the pleasant sayings in 
the vein of Mrs. Malaprop, which have been widely scattered over the world, 
in the newspapers. This peculiar pleasantry, a humourous dislocation of the 
English language, with grotesque associations of ideas, has had various imi- 
tators ; but the original American Mrs. Partington owes her graces to Mr. B. 
P. Shillaber, for several years associated with the Boston Post, in which the 
genuine sayings are recorded. They were collected into a volume in 1854, 
with the title, " The Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington, and others of the 
Family." 



IGNORANCE OF THE COUNTRY. 317 

chose another family more congenial to our free principles ? — And 
yet to those two events, contrary to experience, and unguided by 
precedents, we owe all our domestic happiness, and civil and re- 
ligious freedom — and having got rid of corrupt priests and despot- 
ic kings, by our sense and our courage, are we now to be intimi- 
dated by the awful danger of extinguishing boroughmongers, and 
shaking from our necks the ignominious yoke which their baseness 
has imposed upon it? Go on, they say, as you have done for 
these hundred years last past. I answer, it is impossible — five 
hundred people now write and read where one hundred wrote and 
read fifty years ago. The iniquities and enormities of the borough 
system are now known to the meanest of the people. You have a 
different sort of men to deal with — you must change, because the 
beings whom you govern are changed. After all, and to be short, 
I must say, that it has always appeared to me to be the most abso- 
lute nonsense, that we cannot be a great, or a rich and happy nation, 
without suffering ourselves to be bought and sold every five years, 
like a pack of negro-slaves. I hope I am not a very rash man, 
but I would launch boldly into this experiment without any fear 
of consequences, and I believe there is not a man here present 
who would not cheerfully embark with me. As to the enemies of 
the bill, who pretend to be reformers, I know them, I believe, bet- 
ter than you do, and I earnestly caution you against them. You 
will have no more of reform than they are compelled" to grant — 
you will have no reform at ail, if they can avoid it — you will be 
hurried into a war to turn your attention from reform. They do 
not understand you — they will not believe in the improvement 
you have made — they think the English of the present day are as 
the English of the times of Queen Anne or George the First. They 
know no more of the present state of their own country, than of the 
state of the Esquimaux Indians. Gentlemen, I view the ignorance 
of the present state of the country with the most serious concern, and 
I believe they will one day or another waken into conviction with 
horror and dismay. I will omit no means of rousing them to a 
sense of their danger; for this object T cheerfully sign the petition 
proposed by Dr. Kinglake, which I consider to be the wisest and 
most moderate of the two. 



318 THE BOKOUGH SYSTEM. 

SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 

Stick to the Bill — it is your Magna Charta, and your Runny- 
mede. King John made a present to the barons. King William 
has made a similar present to you. Never mind, common qualities 
good in common times. If a man does not vote for the Bill, he is 
unclean — the plague-spot is upon him — push him into the Laza- 
retto of the last century, with Wetherell and Sadler — purify the 
air before you approach him — bathe your hands in chloride of 
lime, if you have been contaminated by his touch. 

So far from its being a merely theoretical improvement, I put it 
to any man, who is himself embarked in a profession, or has sons 
in the same situation, if the unfair influence of boroughmongers 
has not perpetually thwarted him in his lawful career of ambition, 
and professional emolument ? "I have been in three general en- 
gagements at sea," said an old sailor, " have been twice wounded : 
I commanded the boats when the French frigate, the Astrolabe, 
was cut out so gallantly." " Then you are made a post-captain ?" 
"No ; I was very near it, but — Lieutenant Thomson cut me out, as 
I cut out the French frigate ; his father is townclerk of the borough, 
for which Lord F is member, and there my chance was fin- 
ished." In the same manner, all over England, you will find great 
scholars rotting on curacies — brave captains starving in garrets — 
profound lawyers decayed and mouldering in the Inns of Court, 
because the parsons, warriors, and advocates, of boroughmongers, 
must be crammed to saturation, before there is a morsel of bread 
for the man who does not sell his votes, and put his country up at 
auction ; and though this is of every-day occurrence, the borough 
system, we are told, is no practical evil. 

Who can bear to walk through a slaughterhouse ? blood, gar- 
bage, stomachs, entrails, legs, tails, kidneys, horrors — I often walk 
a mile about to avoid it. What a scene of disgust and horror is 
an election — the base and infamous traffic of principles — a candi- 
date of high character reduced to such means — the perjury and 
evasion of agents — the detestable rapacity of voters ---the ten 
days' dominion, of mammon, and Belial. The Bill lessens it — 
begins the destruction of such practices — affords some chance, and 
some means of turning public opinion against bribery, and of ren- 
dering it infamous. 



VELLUM AND PLUMPKIN. 319 

But the thing I cannot, and will not hear, is this ; what right 
has this lord or that marquis to buy ten seats in Parliament, in 
the shape of boroughs, and then to make laws to govern me? 
And how are these masses of power re -distributed ? The eldest 
son of my lord is just come from Eton — he knows a good deal 
about .ZEneas, and Dido, Apollo, and Daphne — and that is all; 
and to this boy, his father gives a six-hundredth part of the power 
of making laws, as he would give him a horse, or a double-barrelled 
gun. Then Vellum, the steward, is put in — an admirable man ; 
he has raised the estates, watched the progress of the family road, 
and canal bills — and Vellum shall help to rule over the people of 
Israel. A neighbouring country gentleman, Mr. Plumpkin, hunts 
with my lord — opens him a gate or two, while the hounds are 
running — dines with my lord — agrees with my lord — wishes he 
could rival the Southdown sheep of my lord — and upon Plumpkin 
is conferred a portion of the government. Then there is a distant 
relation of the same name, in the county militia, with white teeth, 
who calls up the carriage at the opera, and is always wishing O'Con- 
nell was hanged, drawn, and quartered ; then a barrister, who has 
written an article in the Quarterly, and is very likely to speak and 
refute M'Culloch ; and these five people, in whose nomination I 
have no more agency than I have in the nomination of the toll- 
keepers of the Bosphorus, are to make laws for me and my family 
— to put their hands in my purse, and to sway the future destinies 
of this country ; and when the neighbors step in, and beg permis- 
sion to say a few words before these persons are chosen, there is 
a universal cry of ruin, confusion, and destruction ; we have be- 
come a great people under Vellum and Plumpkin — under Vel- 
lum and Plumpkin our ships have covered the ocean — under 
Vellum and Plumpkin our armies have secured the strength of 
the hills — to turn out Vellum and Plumpkin is not reform, but 
revolution. 

Was there ever such a ministry? Was there ever before a 
real ministry of the people ? Look at the condition of the country 
when it was placed in their hands: the, slate of the house when 
the incoming tenant took possession : windows broken, chimneys 
on fire, mobs round the house threatening to pull it down, roof 
tumbling, rain pouring in. It was courage to occupy it; it was a 
miracle to save it ; it will be the glory of glories to enlarge and 



320 BROUGHAM AND THE COURT OF CHANCERY. 

expand it, and to make it the eternal palace of wise and temperate 
freedom. 

Proper examples have been made among the unhappy and mis- 
guided disciples of Swing: a rope has been carried round O'Con- 
nell's legs, and a ring inserted in Cobbett's nose. Then the game 
laws ! Was ever conduct so shabby as that of the two or three 
governments which preceded that of Lord Grey ? The cruelties 
and enormities of this code had been thoroughly exposed ; and a 
general conviction existed of the necessity of a change. Bills were 
brought in by various gentlemen, containing some trifling altera- 
tion in this abominable code, and even these were sacrificed to the 
tricks and manoeuvres of some noble Nimrod, who availed himself 
of the emptiness of the town in July, and flung out the Bill. Gov- 
ernment never stirred a step. The fullness of the prisons, the 
wretchedness and demoralization of the poor, never came across 
them. The humane and considerate Peel never once offered to 
extend his segis over them. It had nothing to do with the state 
of party ; and some of their double-barrelled voters might be of- 
fended. In the meantime, for every ten pheasants which fluttered 
in the wood, one English peasant was rotting in jail. No sooner 
is Lord Althorp chancellor of the exchequer, than he turns out of 
the house a trumpery and (perhaps) an insidious bill for the im- 
provement of the game laws ; and in an instant offers the assist- 
ance of government for the abolition of the whole code. 

Then look at the gigantic Brougham, sworn in at twelve o'clock, 
and before six, has a bill on the table abolishing the abuses of a court 
which has been the curse of the people of England for centuries. 
For twenty-five long years did Lord Eldon sit in that court, sur- 
rounded with misery and sorrow, which he never held up a finger 
to alleviate. The widow and the orphan cried to him as vainly 
as the town-crier cries when he offers a small reward for a full 
purse ; the bankrupt of the court became the lunatic of the court ; 
estates mouldered away, and mansions fell down ; but the fees 
came in, and all was well. But in an instant the iron mace of 
Brougham shivered to atoms this house of fraud and of delay ; 
and this is the man who will help to govern you ; who bottoms his 
reputation on doing good to you ; who knows, that to reform 
abuses is the safest basis of fame and the surest instrument of 
power; who uses the highest gifts of reason, and the most 



EARL GREY. 321 

splendid efforts of genius, to rectify those abuses, which all 
the genius and talent of the profession* have hitherto been 
employed to justify, and to protect. Look to Brougham, and 
turn you to that side where he waves his long and lean finger, and 
mark well that face which nature has marked so forcibly — 
which dissolves pensions — turns jobbers into honest men — scares 
away the plunderer of the public — and is a terror to him who 
doeth evil to the people. But, above all, look to the northern 
Earl,f victim, before this honest and manly reign, of the spiteful- 
ness of the court. You may now, for the first time, learn to trust 
in the professions of a minister ; you are directed by a man who 
prefers character to place, and who has given such unequivocal 
proofs of honesty and patriotism, that his image ought to be 
amongst your household gods, and his name to be lisped by your 
children ; two thousand years hence it will be a legend like the 
fable of Perseus and Andromeda ; Britannia chained to a moun- 
tain — two hundred rotten animals menacing her destruction, till a 
tall Earl, armed with schedule A., and followed by his page Rus- 
sell, drives them into the deep, and delivers over Britannia in 
safety to crowds of ten-pound renters, who deafen the air with 
their acclamations. Forthwith, Latin verses upon this — school 
exercises — boys whipped, and all the usual absurdities of education. 
Don't part with an administration composed of Lord Grey and 
Lord Brougham; and not only these, but look at them all — the 
mild wisdom of Lansdowne — the genius and extensive knowl- 
edge of Holland, in whose bold and honest life there is no vary- 
ing nor shadow of change — the unexpected and exemplary activity 
of Lord Melbourne — and the rising parliamentary talents of 
Stanley. You are ignorant of your best interests, if every vote 
you can bestow is not given to such a ministry as tin's. 

You will soon find an alteration of behaviour in the upper 
orders when elections become real. You will find that you are 
raised to the importance to which you oughl to lie raised. The 
merciless ejector, the rural tyrant, will be restrained within (he 
limits of decency and humanity, and will improve their own char- 
acters at the same time that they better your condition. 

* Lord Lyndhurst is an exception ; I firmly believe he had no wish to per- 
petuate the abuses of the Court of Chancery. — Author's Note. 
t Lord Grey. 

i I* 



322 KING WILLIAM AND THE EEVOLUTION. 

It is not the power of aristocracy that will be destroyed by 
these measures, but the unfair power. If the Duke of Newcastle 
is kind and obliging to his neighbours, he will probably lead his 
neighbours ; if he is a man of sense, he will lead them more cer- 
tainly, and to a better purpose. All this is as it should be ; but the 
Duke of Newcastle, at present, by buying certain old houses, 
could govern his neighbours and legislate for them, even if he had 
not five grains of understanding, and if he were the most churlish 
and brutal man under heaven. The present state of things renders 
unnecessary all those important virtues, which rich and well-born 
men, under a better system, would exercise for the public good. 
The Duke of Newcastle (I mention him only as an instance), 
Lord Exeter will do as well, but either of those noblemen, de- 
pending not upon walls, arches, and abutments, for their power — 
but upon mercy, charity, forbearance, indulgence, and example — 
would pay this price, and lead the people by their affections ; one 
would be the god of Stamford, and the other of Newark. This 
union of the great with the many is the real healthy state of a 
country ; such a country is strong to invincibility — and this 
strength the borough system entirely destroys. 

Cant words creep in, and affect quarrels ; the changes are rung 
between revolution and reform ; but, first settle whether a wise 
government ought to attempt the measure — whether anything is 
wanted — whether less would do — and, having settled this, mere 
nomenclature becomes of very little consequence. But, after all, 
if it is revolution, and not reform, it will only induce me to receive 
an old political toast in a twofold meaning, and with twofold 
pleasure. When King William and the great and glorious Rev- 
olution are given, I shall think not only of escape from bigotry, 
but exemption from corruption ; and I shall thank Providence, 
which has given us a second King William for the destruction of 
vice, as the other, of that name, was given us for the conservation 
of freedom. 

All formal political changes, proposed by these very men, it is 
said, were mild and gentle, compared to this ; true, but are you on 
Saturday night to seize your apothecary by the throat and to 
say to him, " Subtle compounder, fraudulent posologist, did not 
you order me a drachm of this medicine on Monday morning, and 
now you declare that nothing short of an ounce can do me any 



HEPTARCHY OF THE PEESS. 323 

good ?" " True enough," would lie of the vials reply, " but you 
did not take the drachm on Monday morning — that makes all the 
difference, my dear sir ; if you had done as I advised you at first, 
the small quantity of medicine would have sufficed ; and instead 
of being in a night-gown and slippers up-stairs, you would have 
been walking vigourously in Piccadilly. Do as you please — and 
die if you please ; but don't blame me because you despised my 
advice, and by your own ignorance and obstinacy have entailed 
upon yourself tenfold rhubarb and unlimited infusion of senna." 

Now see the consequences of having a manly leader, and 
a manly Cabinet. Suppose they had come out with a little ill- 
fashioned seven months' reform ; what would have been the conse- 
quence ? The same opposition from the Tories — that would have 
been quite certain — and not a single Reformer in England satis- 
fied with the measure. You have now a real Reform, and a fair 
share of power delegated to the people. 

The Anti-Reformers cite the increased power of the press — 
this is the very reason why I want an increased power in the 
House of Commons. The Times, Herald, Advertiser, Globe, 
Sun, Courier, and Chronicle, are a heptarchy which governs this 
country, and governs it because the people are so badly repre- 
sented. I am perfectly satisfied, that with a fair and honest House 
of Commons the power of the press would diminish — and that 
the greatest authority would centre in the highest place. 

Is it possible for a gentleman to get into Parliament, at present, 
without doing things he is utterly ashamed of — without mixing 
himself up with the lowest and basest of mankind ? Hands accus- 
tomed to the scented lubricity of soap, are defiled with pitch, and 
contaminated with filth. Is there not some inherent vice in a 
Government, which cannot be carried on but with such abominable, 
wickedness, in which no gentleman can mingle without moral 
degradation, and the practice of crimes, the very imputation of 
which, on other occasions, lie would repel at the hazard of his lite? 

What signifies a small majority in the House? The miracle is, 
that there should have been any majority at all ; that there was 
not an immense majority on the other side It was a very long 
period before the courts of justice in Jersey could put down smug- 
gling, and why? The judges; counsel, attorneys, crier of the 
court, grand and petty jurymen, were all ,-mugglers, and the 



324 THE NEW REPRESENTATIVES. 

high-sheriff and constables were running goods every moonlight 
night. 

How are you to do without a government ? And what other 
government, if this Bill be ultimately lost, could possibly be found ? 
How could any country defray the ruinous expense of protecting, 
with troops and constables, the Duke of Wellington and Sir 
Eobert Peel, who literally would not be able to walk from the 
Horse-Guards to Grosvenor Square, without two or three regi- 
ments of foot to screen them from the mob ; and in these hollow 
squares the Hero of Waterloo would have to spend his political 
life ? By the whole exercise of his splendid military talents, by 
strong batteries, at Boodle's and White's, he might, on nights of 
great debate, reach the House of Lords; but Sir Robert would, 
probably, be cut off ? and nothing could save Twiss and Lewis. 

The great majority of persons returned by the new Boroughs 
would either be men of high reputation for talents, or persons of for- 
tune known in the neighbourhood ; they have property and character 
to lose. Why are they to plunge into mad revolutionary projects 
of pillaging the public creditor ? It is not the interest of any such 
man to do it ; he would lose more by the destruction of public 
credit than he would gain by a remission of what he paid for 
the interest of the public debt. And if it is not the interest of 
any one to act in this manner, it is not the interest of the mass. 
How many, also, of these new legislators would there be, who 
were not themselves creditors of the state ? Is it the interest of 
such men to create a revolution, by destroying the constitutional 
power of the House of Lords, or of the king? Does there exist 
in persons of that class, any disposition for such changes ? Are not 
all their feelings, and opinions, and prejudices, on the opposite side ? 
The majority of the new members will be landed gentlemen : their 
genus is utterly distinct from the revolutionary tribe ; they have 
molar teeth; they are destitute of the carnivorous and incisive 
jaws of political adventurers. 

There will be mistakes at first, as there are in all changes. All 
young ladies will imagine (as soon as this bill is carried) that they 
will be instantly married. Schoolboys believe that gerunds and 
supines will be abolished, and that currant tarts must ultimately 
come down in price ; the corporal and sergeant are sure of double 
pay; bad poets will expect a demand for their epics; fools will be 



BENEFITS OF REFORM. 325 

disappointed, as they always are ; reasonable men, who know what 
to expect, will find that a very serious good has been obtained. 

What good to the hewer of wood and the drawer of water? 
How is he benefited, if Old Sarum is abolished, and Birmingham 
members created? But if you ask this question of reform, you 
must ask it of a great number of other great measures. How is he 
benefited by Catholic emancipation, by the repeal of the Corpora- 
tion and Test Act, by the Revolution of 1 688, by any great politi- 
cal change ? by a good government ? In the first place, if many 
are benefited, and the lower orders are not injured, this alone is 
reason enough for the change. But the hewer of wood and the 
drawer of water are benefited by reform. Reform will produce 
economy and investigation ; there will be fewer jobs, and a less 
lavish expenditure ; wars will not be persevered in for years after 
the people are tired of them ; taxes will be taken off the poor and 
laid upon the rich : demotic habits will be more common in a 
country where the rich are forced to court the poor for political 
power ; cruel and oppressive punishments (such as those for night 
poaching) will be abolished. If you steal a pheasant, you will be 
punished as you ought to be, but not sent away from your wife and 
children for seven years. Tobacco will be two pence per pound 
cheaper. Candles will fall in price. These last results of an 
improved government will be felt. We do not pretend to abolish 
poverty, or to prevent wretchedness ; but if peace, economy, and 
justice, are the results of reform, a number of small benefits, or 
rather of benefits which appear small to us but not to them, will 
accrue to millions of the people ; and the connection between the 
existence of John Russell, and the reduced price of bread and 
cheese, will be as clear as it is has been the object of his honest, 
wise, and useful life to make it. 

Don't be led away by such nonsense; all things are dearer 
under a bad government, and cheaper under a good one The 
real question they a<k you is, Wha1 difference can any change of 
government make to you? They want to keep the bees from 
buzzing and stinging, in order that they may rob (he hive in 
peace. 

Work well! How does it work well, when cwry human being in 
doors and out (with tin 1 exception of the Duke of Wellington) says it 
must be made to work better, or it will soon cease to work at all? 



326 MODES OF REFORM. 

It is little short of absolute nonsense to call a government good, 
which the great mass of Englishmen would before twenty years 
were elapsed, if reform were denied, rise up and destroy. Of what 
use have all the cruel laws been of Perceval, Eldon, and Castle- 
reagh, to extinguish reform ? Lord John Russell and his abettors, 
would have been committed to jail twenty years ago for half only of 
his present reform ; and now relays of the people would drag them 
from London to Edinburgh ; at which latter city we are told by 
Mr. Dundas, that there is no eagerness for reform. Five minutes 
before Moses struck the rock, this gentleman would have said that 
there was no eagerness for water. 

There are two methods of making alterations ; the one is to 
despise the applicants, to begin with refusing every concession, 
then to relax to making concessions which are always too late; by 
offering in 1831 what is then too late, but would have been cheer- 
fully accepted in 1830 — gradually to O'Connellize the country, 
till at last, after this process has gone on for some time, the alarm 
becomes too great, and everything is conceded in hurry and con- 
fusion. In the meantime, fresh conspiracies have been hatched by 
the long delay, and no gratitude is expressed for what has been 
extorted by fear. In this way, peace was concluded with Amer- 
ica, and emancipation granted to the Catholics ; and in this way 
the war of complexion will be finished in the West Indies. The 
other method is, to see at a distance that the thing must be done, 
and to do it effectually, and at once ; to take it out of the hands of 
the common people, and to carry the measure in a manly liberal 
manner, so as to satisfy the great majority. — The merit of this 
belongs to the administration of Lord Grey. He is the only 
minister I know of who has begun a great measure in good time, 
conceded at the beginning of twenty years what would have been 
extorted at the end of it, and prevented that folly, violence, and 
ignorance, which emanate from a long denial and extorted conces- 
sion of justice to great masses of human beings. I believe the 
question of reform, or any dangerous agitation of it, is set at rest 
for thirty or forty years ; and this is an eternity in politics. 

Boroughs are not the power proceeding from wealth. Many 
men, who have no boroughs, are infinitely richer than those who 
have — but it is the artifice of wealth in seizing hold of certain 
localities. The boroughmonger is like rheumatism, which owes its 



OMNIPOTENCE OP REFORM. 327 

power not so much to the intensity of the pain as to its peculiar 
position ; a little higher up, or a little lower down, the same pain 
would be trifling ; but it fixes in the joints, and gets into the head- 
quarters of motion and activity. The boroughmonger knows the 
importance of arthritic positions ; he disdains muscle, gets into the 
joints, and lords it over the whole machine by felicity of place. 
Other men are as rich — but those riches are not fixed in the 
critical spot. 

I live a good deal with all ranks and descriptions of people ; I am 
thoroughly convinced that the party of democrats and republicans 
is very small and contemptible ; that the English love their insti- 
tutions — that they not love only this king (who would not love 
him?) but the kingly office — that they have no hatred to the aris- 
tocracy. I am not afraid of trusting English happiness to English 
gentlemen. I believe that the half million of new voters will 
choose much better for the public than the twenty or thirty peers, 
to whose usurped power they succeed. 

If any man doubts the power of reform, let him take these two 
memorable proofs of its omnipotence. First, but for the declara- 
tion against it, I believe the Duke of Wellington might this day 
have been in office ; and, secondly, in the whole course of the de- 
bates at county meetings and in Parliament, there are not twenty 
men who have declared against reform. Some advance an inch, 
some a foot, some a yard — but nobody stands still — nobody says, 
We ought to remain just where we were — everybody discovers 
that he is a reformer, and has long been so — and appears infi- 
nitely delighted with this new view of himself. Nobody appears 
without the cockade — bigger or less — but always the cockade. 

An exact and elaborate census is called for — vast information 
should have been laid upon the table of the house — ureal time 
should have been given for deliberation. All these objections, 
being turned into English, simply mean, thai the chances of an- 
other year should have been given for defeating the bill. In that 
time; the Poles may be crushed, the Belgians Orangized, Louis 
Philippe dethroned; war may rage all over Europe — the popular 

spirit may be diverted to other objects. It is certainly provoking 

that the ministry foresaw all these possibilities, and determined to 
model the iron while it was red and glowing. 

It is not enough that a political institution works well practically : 



328 THE KING. 

it must be defensible ; it must be such as will bear discussion, and 
not excite ridicule and contempt. It might work well for aught I 
know, if, like the savages of Onelashka, we sent out to catch a 
king: but who could defend a coronation by chase? who can 
defend the payment of forty thousand pounds for the three-hun- 
dredth part of the power of Parliament, and the re-sale of this 
power to government for places to the Lord Williams, and Lord 
Charles's, and others of the Anglophagi ? Teach a million of the 
common people to read — and such a government (work it ever so 
well) must perish in twenty years. It is impossible to persuade 
the mass of mankind, that there are not other and better methods of 
governing a country. It is so complicated, so wicked, such envy 
and hatred accumulate against the gentlemen who have fixed them- 
selves on the joints, that it cannot fail to perish, and to be driven 
as it is driven from the country, by a general burst of hatred and 
detestation. I meant, gentlemen, to have spoken for another half- 
hour, but I am old and tired. Thank me for ending — but, gentle- 
men, bear with me for another moment ; one word more before I 
end. I am old, but I thank God I have lived to see more than my 
observations on human nature taught me I had any right to expect. 
I have lived to see an honest king, in whose word his ministers 
can trust ; who disdains to deceive those men whom he has called 
to the public service, but makes common cause with them for the 
common good ; and exercises the highest powers of a ruler for the 
dearest interests of the state. I have lived to see a king with a 
good heart, who, surrounded by nobles, thinks of common men ; 
who loves the great mass of English people, and wishes to be 
loved by them ; who knows that his real power, as he feels that 
his happiness, is founded on their affection. I have lived to see a 
king, who, without pretending to the pomp of superior intellect, 
has the wisdom to see, that the decayed institutions of human 
policy require amendment ; and who, in spite of clamour, interest, 
prejudice, and fear, has the manliness to carry these wise changes 
into immediate execution. Gentlemen, farewell: shout for the 
king. 



CHURCH PATRONAGE. 329 



LETTERS TO ARCHDEACON SINGLETON.* 



BISHOPS AND PATRONAGE. 

Never dreaming of such sudden revolutions as these, a preben- 
dary brings up his son to the church, and spends a large sum of 
money in his education, which, perhaps, he can ill afford. His 
hope is (wicked wretch !) that, according to the established custom 
of the body to which he (immoral man !) belongs, the chapter will 
(when his turn arrives), if his son be of fair attainments and good 
character attend to his nefarious recommendation, and confer the 
living upon the young man ; and in an instant all his hopes are de- 
stroyed, and he finds his preferment seized upon, under the plea 
of public good, by a stronger churchman than himself. I can call 
this by no other name than that of tyranny and oppression. I 
know very well that this is not the theory of patronage ; but who 
does better? — do individual patrons? — do colleges who give in 
succession? — and as for bishops, lives there the man so weak 
and foolish, so little observant of the past, as to believe (when 
this tempest of purity and perfection has blown over) that the 
name of Blomfield will not figure in benefices from which the 
names of Copleston, Blomberg, Tate, and Smith, have been so 
virtuously excluded? T have no desire to make odious compar- 
isons between the purity of one set of patrons and another, but 
they are forced upon me by the injustice of the commissioners. I 
must either make such comparisons or yield up, without remon- 
strance, those rights to which I am fairly entitled. 

It may be said thai the bishops will do better in future; that 

* Letters to Archdeacon Singleton on the Ecclesiastical Commission, 
1837. 



330 THE PUBLIC EYE. 

now the public eye is upon them, they will be ashamed into a more 
lofty and anti-nepotic spirit ; but, if the argument of past superiority 
is given up, and the hope of future amendment resorted to, why 
may we not improve as well as our masters ? but the commission 
say, " These excellent men" (meaning themselves) " have prom- 
ised to do better, and we have an implicit confidence in their word : 
we must have the patronage of the cathedrals." In the meantime, 
we are ready to promise as well as the bishops. 

With regard to that common newspaper phrase, the public eye 
— there's nothing (as the bench well know) more wandering and 
slippery than the public eye. In five years hence, the public eye 
will no more see what description of men are promoted by bishops, 
that it will see what doctors of law are promoted by the Turkish 
Ulhema ; and at the end of this period (such is the example set 
by the commission), the public eye, turned in every direction, may 
not be able to see any bishops at all. 

In many instances, chapters are better patrons than bishops, 
because their preferment is not given exclusively to one species of 
incumbents. I have a diocese now in my private eye which has 
undergone the following changes. The first of three bishops whom 
I remember was a man of careless, easy temper, and how patron- 
age went in those early days may be conjectured by the following 
letters ; which are not his, but serve to illustrate a system : 

THE BISHOP TO LORD A 

My dear Lord, 

I have noticed with great pleasure the behaviour of your lordship's second 
son, and am most happy to have it in my power to offer to him the living 
of # # #, He will find it of considerable value ; and there is, I understand, 
a very good house upon it, &c, &c. 

This is to confer a living upon a man of real merit out of the 
family ; into which family, apparently sacrificed to the public good, 
the living is brought back by the second letter : — 

THE SAME TO THE SAME, A YEAR AFTER. 

My dear Lord, 

Will you excuse the Liberty I take in soliciting promotion for my grandson "? 
He is an officer of great skill and gallantry, and can bring the most ample 
testimonials from some of the best men in the profession : the Arethusa frig- 
ate is, I understand, about to be commissioned; and if, &c, &c. 

Now I am not saying that hundreds of prebendaries have not 
committed such enormities and stupendous crimes as this (a decla- 



BISHOPS. 331 

ration which will fill the whig cabinet with horror) ; all that I 
mean to contend for is, that such is the practice of bishops quite 
as much as it is of inferior patrons. 

The second bishop was a decided enemy of Calvinistical doc- 
trines, and no clergyman so tainted had the slightest chance of 
preferment in his diocese. 

The third bishop could endure no man whose principles were 
not strictly Calvinistic, and who did not give to the articles that 
kind of interpretation. Now here were a great mass of clergy 
naturally alive to the emoluments of their profession, and not 
knowing which way to look or stir, because they depended so 
entirely upon the will of one person. Not otherwise is it with a 
very whig bishop, or a very tory bishop ; but the worst case is 
that of a superannuated bishop ; here the preferment is given 
away, and must be given away, by wives and daughters, or by sons, 
or by butlers, perhaps, and valets, and the poor dying patron's para- 
lytic hand is guided to the signature of papers, the contents of which 
he is utterly unable to comprehend. In all such cases as these, the 
superiority of bishops as patrons will not assist that violence which 
the commissioners have committed upon the patronage of cathedrals. 



ADVICE TO BISHOPS. 

There is a practice among some bishops, which may as well be 
mentioned here as anywhere else, but which, I think, cannot be 
too severely reprobated. They send for a clergyman, and insist 
upon his giving evidence respecting the character and conduct of 
his neighbour. Does he hunt? Does he shoot? Is he in debt? 
Is he temperate ? Does he attend to his parish ? &c, &c. Now, 
what is this, but to destroy for all clergymen the very elements of 
social life — to put an end to all confidence between man and man 
— and to disseminate among gentlemen, who are bound to live in 
concord, every feeling of resentment, hatred, and suspicion? But 
the very essence of tyranny is to act as if the finer feelings, like 
the finer dishes, were delicacies only for the rich and great, and 
that little people have no taste for them, and do right to them. A 
good and honest bishop (I thank God there arc many who deserve 
that character !) ought to suspect himself, and carefully to watch 
his own heart. He is all of a sudden elevated from being a tutor, 



332 CHRONICLE OF DORT. 

dining at an early hour with his pupil (and occasionally, it is be- 
lieved, on cold meat), to be a spiritual lord; he is dressed in a 
magnificent dress, decorated with a title, flattered by chaplains, and 
surrounded by little people looking up for the things which he has 
to give away ; and this often happens to a man who has had no 
opportunities of seeing the world, whose parents were in very hum- 
ble life, and who has given up all his thoughts to the Frogs of 
Aristophanes and the Targum of Onkelos. How is it possible that 
such a man should not lose his head ? that he should not swell ? 
that he should not be guilty of a thousand follies, and worry and 
tease to death (before he recovers his common sense) a hundred 
men as good, and as wise, and as able as himself. 



THE DUTCH CHRONICLE OF DORT. 

I met, the other day, in an old Dutch chronicle, with a passage 
so apposite to this subject, that though it is somewhat too light for 
the occasion, I cannot abstain from quoting it. There was a great 
meeting of all the clergy at Dordrecht, and the chronicler thus de- 
scribes it, which I give in the language of the translation : " And 
there was great store of bishops in the town, in their robes goodly 
to behold, and all the great men of the state were there, and folks 
poured in in boats on the Meuse, the Merve, the Rhine, and the 
Linge, coming from the Isle of Beverlandt, and Isselmond, and 
from all quarters in the Bailiwick of Dort ; Arminians and Go- 
marists, with the friends of John Barneveldt and of Hugh Grote. 
And before my lords the bishops, Simon of Gloucester, who was a 
bishop in those parts, disputed with Vorstius, and Leoline the 
Monk, and many texts of Scripture were bandied to and fro ; and 
when this was done, and many propositions made, and it waxed to- 
ward twelve of the clock, my lords the bishops prepared to set 
them down to a fair repast, in which was great store of good things, 
— and among the rest a roasted peacock, having, in Keu of a tail, 
the arms and banners of the archbishop, which was a goodly sight 
to all who favoured the church — and then the archbishop would 
say a grace, as was seemly to do, he being a very holy man ; but 
ere he had finished, a great mob of townspeople and folks from the 
country, who were gathered under the window, cried out, Bread! 
bread! for there was a great famine, and wheat had risen to three 



POPULAR CHURCH PROMOTION. 333 

times the ordinary price of the sleich ;* and when they had done 
crying Bread! bread! they called out No bishops! — and began 
to cast up stones at the windows. Whereat my lords the bishops 
were in a great fright, and cast their dinner out of the window to 
appease the mob, and so the men of that town were well pleased, 
and did devour the meats with great appetite ; and then you might 
have seen my lords standing with empty plates, and looking wist- 
fully at each other, till Simon of Gloucester, he who disputed with 
Leoline the Monk, stood up among them and said, ' Good, my lords, 
is it your pleasure to stand here fasting, and that those who count 
lower in the phurch than you do, should feast and fluster ? Let us 
order to us the dinner of the deans and canons, which is making 
ready for them in the chamber below J And this speech of Simon 
of Gloucester pleased the bishops much ; so that they sent for the 
host, one William of Ypres, and told him it was for the public 
good, and he, much fearing the bishops, brought them the dinner 
of the deans and canons ; and so the deans and canons went away 
without dinner, and were pelted by the men of the town, because 
they had not put any meat out of the window like the bishops ; and 
when the count came to hear of it, he said it was a pleasant con- 
ceit, and that the bishops were right cunning men, and had dinfd 
the canons well" 



YOUNG CRUMPETS ASCENT TO ST. PAULS. 

I am surprised it does not strike the mountaineers how very 
much the great emoluments of the church are flung open to the 
lowest ranks of the community. Butchers, bakers, publicans, 
schoolmasters, are perpetually seeing their children elevated to the 
mitre. Let a respectable baker drive through the city from the 
west end of the town, and let him cast an eye on the battlements 
of Northumberland House, has his little muffin-faced son the smal- 
lest chance of getting in among the Percies, enjoying a share of 
their luxury and splendour, and of chasing the deer with hound 
and horn upon the Cheviot Hills? But let him drive his alum- 
steeped loaves a little farther, till he reaches St. Paul's Church- 

* A measure in the bailiwick of Dort, containing two gallons one pint 
English dry measure. — Author's Note. The whole passage from the Chron- 
icle, of course, a pleasant invention. 



334 LORD MELBOURNE. 

yard, and all his thoughts are changed when he sees that beautiful 
fabric; it is not impossible that his little penny roll may be 
introduced into that splendid oven. Young Crumpet is sent to 
school — takes to his books — spends the best years of his life, as 
all eminent Englishmen do, in making Latin verses — knows that 
the crum in crumpet is long, and the pet short — goes to the Uni- 
versity — gets a prize for an Essay on the Dispersion of the Jews 
— takes orders — becomes a bishop's chaplain — has a young noble- 
man for his pupil— publishes a useless classic, and a serious call 
to the unconverted — and then goes through the Elysian transi- 
tions of prebendary, dean, prelate, and the long train of purple, 
profit, and power. 



LORD MELBOURNE. 

Viscount Melbourne declared himself quite satisfied with the 
church as it is ; but if the public had any desire to alter it, they 
might do as they pleased. He might have said the same thing 
of the monarchy, or of any other of our institutions ; and there is 
in the declaration a permissiveness and good humour which, in 
public men, have seldom been exceeded. Carelessness, however, 
is but a poor imitation of genius, and the formation of a wise and 
well-reflected plan of reform conduces more to the lasting fame of 
a minister than that affected contempt of duty which every man 
sees to be mere vanity, and a vanity of no very high description. 

But if the truth must be told, our Viscount is somewhat of an im- 
postor. Everything about him seems to betoken careless desola- 
tion ; any one would suppose from his manner that he was playing 
at chuck-farthing with human happiness ; that he was always on 
the heel of pastime ; that he would giggle away the great charter, 
and decide by the method of tee-totum whether my lords the bish- 
ops should or should not retain their seats in the House of Lords. 
All this is the mere vanity of surprising, and making us believe 
that he can play with kingdoms as other men can with nine-pins. 
Instead of this lofty nebulo, this miracle of moral and intellectual 
felicities, he is nothing more than a sensible, honest man, who 
means to do his duty to the sovereign and to the country ; instead 
of being the ignorant man he pretends to be, before he meets the 
deputation of tallow-chandlers in the morning, he sits up half the 



THE BISHOPS AND SMALL LIVINGS. 335 

night talking with Thomas Young about melting and skimming, 
and then, though he has acquired knowledge enough to work off a 
whole vat of prime Leicester tallow, he pretends next morning not 
to know the difference between a dip and a mould. In the same 
way, when he has been employed in reading acts of Parliament, 
he would persuade you that he has been reading Cleghom on the 
Beatitudes, or Pickler on the Nine Difficult Points. Neither can 
I allow to this minister (however he may be irritated by the de- 
nial) the extreme merit of indifference to the consequences of his 
measures. I believe him to be conscientiously alive to the good 
or evil that he is doing, and that his caution has more than once 
arrested the gigantic projects of the Lycurgus of the Lower House. 
I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings, and to brush away the 
magnificent fabric of levity and gayety he has reared ; but I accuse 
our minister of honesty and diligence ; I deny that he is careless 
or rash : he is nothing more than a man of good understanding, 
and good principle, disguised in the eternal and somewhat weari- 
some affectation of a political roue. 



RUSSELL AND THE BISHOPS AN APOLOGUE. 

This is very good episcopal reasoning ; but is it true ? The 
bishops and commissioners wanted a fund to endow small livings ; 
they did not touch a farthing of their own incomes, only distribu- 
ted them a little more equally ; and proceeded lustily at once to 
confiscate cathedral property. But why was it necessary, if the fund 
for small livings was such a paramount consideration, that the fu- 
ture archbishops of Canterbury should be left with two palaces, 
and £15,000 per annum ? Why is every future bishop of London 
to have a palace in Fulham, a house in St. James's Square, and 
£10,000 a-year? Could not all the episcopal functions be carried 
on well and effectually with the half of these incomes? Is it ne- 
cessary that the Archbishop of Canterbury should give feasts to 
aristocratic London ; and that the domestics of the prelacy should 
stand with swords and bag-wigs round pig, and turkey, and veni- 
son, to defend, as it were, the orthodox gastronome from- the fierce 
Unitarian, the fell Baptist, and all the famished children of dissent ? 
I don't object to all this ; because I am sure that the method of 
prizes and blanks is the best method of supporting a church, which 



386 HOENED CATTLE AND THE LION. 

must be considered as very slenderly endowed, if the whole were 
equally divided among the parishes ; but if my opinion were dif- 
ferent — if I thought the important improvement was to equalize 
preferment in the English church — that such a measure was not 
the one thing foolish, but the one thing needful — I should take 
care, as a mitred commissioner, to reduce my own species of pre- 
ferment to the narrowest Hmits, before I proceeded to confiscate 
the property of any other grade of the church. I could not, as a 
conscientious man, leave the Archbishop of Canterbury with 
£15,000 a-year, and make a fund by annihilating residentiaries at 
Bristol of £500. This comes of calling a meeting of one species 
of cattle only. The horned cattle say — "If you want any meat, 
kill the sheep ; don't meddle with us, there is no beef to spare." 
They said this, however, to the lion ; and the cunning animal, after 
he had gained all the information necessary for the destruction of 
the muttons, and learned how well and widely they pastured, and 
how they could be most conveniently eaten up, turns round and in- 
forms the cattle, who took him for their best and tenderest friend, 
that he means to eat them up also. Frequently did Lord John meet 
the destroying bishops ; much did he commend their daily heap of 
ruins ; sweetly did they smile on each other, and much charming talk 
was there of meteorology and catarrh, and the particular cathedral 
they were pulling down at each period ;* till one fine day, the 
Home Secretary, with a voice more bland, and a look more ardently 
affectionate, than that which the masculine mouse bestows on his 
nibbling female, informed them that the government meant to take 
all the church property into their own hands, to pay the rates out 
of it, and deliver the residue to the rightful possessors. Such an 
effect, they say, was never before produced by a coup de theatre. 
The commission was separated in an instant: London clinched 
his fist ; Canterbury was hurried out by his chaplains, and put into 
a warm bed ; a solemn vacancy spread itself over the face of Glou- 
cester ; Lincoln was taken out in strong hysterics. What a noble 
scene Serjeant Talfourd would have made of this ! Why are such 
talents wasted on Ion and the Athenian Captive ? 

* " What cathedral are we pulling down to-day ?" was the standing ques- 
tion at the Commission. 



THE BISHOP'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 337 

PAYING THE BISHOPS. 

There is some safety in dignity. A church is in danger when 
it is degraded. It costs mankind much less to destroy it when an 
institution is associated with mean, and not with elevated ideas. I 
should like to see the subject in the hands of H. B. I would 
entitle the print : — 

u The Bishop's Saturday Night ; or, Lord John Russell at the 

Pay-Table." 

The bishops should be standing before the pay-table, and receiv- 
ing their weekly allowance ; Lord John and Spring Rice counting, 
ringing, and biting the sovereigns, and the Bishop of Exeter in- 
sisting that the chancellor of the exchequer has given him one 
which was not weight. Viscount Melbourne, in high chuckle, 
should be standing, with his hat on, and his back to the fire, de- 
lighted with the contest ; and the deans and canons should be in 
the background, waiting till their turn came, and the bishops were 
paid ; and among them a canon, of large composition, urging' them 
on not to give way too much to the bench. Perhaps I should add 
the President of the Board of Trade, recommending the truck prin- 
ciple to the bishops, and offering to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, 
aprons, shovel-hats, sermon-cases, and such like ecclesiastical gear. 

But the madness and folly of such a measure is in the revolu- 
tionary feeling which it excites. A government taking into its 
hands such an immense value of property ! What a lesson of vio- 
lence and change to the mass of mankind ! Do you want to accus- 
tom Englishmen to lose all confidence in the permanence of their 
institutions — to inure them to great acts of plunder — and to draw 
forth all the latent villanies of human nature ? The whig leaders 
are honest men, and cannot mean this ; but these foolish and incon- 
sistent measures are the horn-book and infantile lessons of revolu- 
tion ; and remember, it requires no great time to teach mankind to 
rob and murder on a great scale 



A FOOLOMETER. 

I AM astonished that these, ministers neglect the common pre- 
caution of a foolometer,* with which no public man should be un- 

* Mr. Fox very often used to say, "I wonder what Lord B. will think of 
this." Lord B. happened to be a very stupid person, and the curiosity of 

15 



338 THE FOOLOMETER. 

provided ; I mean, the acquaintance and society of three or four 
regular British fools as a test of public opinion. Every cabinet-min- 
ister should judge of all his measures by his foolometer, as a navi- 
gator crowds or shortens sail by the barometer in his cabin. I 
have a very valuable instrument of that kind myself, which I have 
used for many years ; and I would be bound to predict, with the 
utmost nicety, by the help of this machine, the precise effect which 
any measure would produce upon public opinion. Certainly, I never 
saw anything so decided as the effects produced upon my machine 
by the rate bill. No man who had been accustomed in the small- 
est degree to handle philosophical instruments could have doubted 
of the storm which was coming on, or of the thoroughly un-English 
scheme hi which the ministry had so rashly engaged themselves. 



INEQUALITIES OF THE CHURCH CURATES. 

I have no manner of doubt, that the immediate effect of passing 
the dean and chapter bill will be, that a great number of fathers 
and uncles, judging, and properly judging, that the church is a very 
altered and deterioriated profession, will turn the industry and 
capital of their Sieves into another channel. My friend, Robert 
Eden, says " this is of the earth earthy :" be it so ; I cannot help 
it, I paint mankind- as I find them, and am not answerable for their 
defects. When an argument, taken from real life, and the actual 
condition of the world, is brought among the shadowy discussions of 
ecclesiastics, it always occasion terror and dismay ; it is like .ZEneas 
stepping into Charon's boat, which carried only ghosts and spirits. 

" Gemuit sub pondere cymba 
Sutilis." 

The whole plan of the Bishop of London is a ptochogony — a 
generation of beggars. He purposes, out of the spoils of the 
cathedral, to create a thousand livings, and to give to the thou- 

Mr. Fox's friends was naturally excited to know why he attached such im- 
portance to the opinion of such an ordinary commonplace person. " His 
opinion/" said Mr. Fox, "is of much more importance than you are aware 
of. He is an exact representative of all commonplace English prejudices, and 
what Lord B. thinks of any measure, the great majority of English people will 
think of it." It would be a good thing if every cabinet of philosophers had a 
Lord B. among them. — Author's Note. 



A PTOCHOGONY. 339 

sand clergymen £130 per annum each; a Christian bishop propo- 
sing, in cold blood, to create a thousand livings of £130 per annum 
each ; — to call into existence a thousand of the most unhappy men 
on the face of the earth — the sons of the poor, without hope, 
without the assistance of private fortune, chained to the soil, 
ashamed to live with their inferiors, unfit for the society of the bet- 
ter classes, and dragging about the English curse of poverty, without 
the smallest hope that they can ever shake it off. At present, such 
livings are filled by young men who have better hopes — who have 
reason to expect good property — who look forward to a college or 
a family living — who are the sons of men of some substance, and 
hope so to pass on to something better — who exist under the 
delusion of being hereafter deans and prebendaries — who are 
paid once by money, and three times by hope. Will the Bishop 
of London promise to the progeny of any of these thousand vic- 
tims of the holy innovation that, if they behave well, one of them 
shall have his butler's place ? another take care of the cedars and 
hyssops of his garden? Will he take their daughters for his 
nurserymaids ? and may some of the sons of these " labourers of 
the vineyard" hope one day to ride the leaders from St. James's 
to Fulham? Here is hope — here is room for ambition — afield 
for genius, and a ray of amelioration ! If these beautiful feelings 
of compassion are throbbing under the cassock of the bishop, he 
ought, in common justice to himself, to make them known. 

If it were a scheme for giving ease and independence to any 
large bodies of clergymen, it might be listened to ; but the revenues 
of the English church are such as to render this wholly and entirely 
out of the question. If you place a man in a village in the coun- 
try, require that he should be of good manners and well educated, 
that his habits and appearance should be above those of the far- 
mers to whom he preaches, if he has nothing else to expect (as 
would be the case in a church of equal division) ; and if, upon his 
village income, he is to support a wife and educate a family, 
without any power of making himself known in a remote and soli- 
tary situation, such a person ought to receive £500 per annum, and 
be furnished with a house. There are about 10,700 parishes in 
England and Wales whose average income is £285 per annum. 
Now, to provide these incumbents with decent houses, to keep 
them in repair, and to raise the income of the incumbent to £500 



340 A CURATE. 

per annum, would require (if all the incomes of the bishops, deans 
and chapters of separate dignitaries, of sinecure rectories, were 
confiscated, and if the excess of all the livings in England above 
£500 per annum were added to them) a sum of two millions and 
a half in addition to the present income of the whole church ; and 
no power on earth could persuade the present Parliament of Great 
Britain to grant a single shilling for that purpose. Now, is it 
possible to pay such a church upon any other, principle than that 
of unequal division? The proposed pillage of the cathedral and 
college churches (omitting all consideration of the separate estate 
of dignitaries) would amount, divided among all the benefices of 
England to about £5 12s. 6^d. per man: and this, which would 
not stop an hiatus in a cassock, and would drive out of the paro- 
chial church ten times as much as it brought into it, is the panacea 
for pauperism recommended by her majesty's commissioners. 

But if this plan were to drive men of capital out of the church, 
and to pauperize the English clergy, where would the harm be ? 
Could not all the duties of religion be performed as well by poor 
clergymen as by men of good substance ? My great and serious 
apprehension is, that such would not be the case. There would 
be the greatest risk that your clergy would be fanatical, and 
ignorant ; that their habits would be low and mean, and that they 
would be despised. 

Then a picture is drawn of a clergyman with £130 per annum, 
who combines all moral, physical, and intellectual advantages ; a 
learned man, dedicating himself intensely to the care of his parish 
— of charming manners and dignified deportment — six feet two 
inches high, beautifully proportioned, with a magnificent counte- 
nance expressive of all the cardinal virtues and the Ten Com- 
mandments — and it is asked, with an air of triumph, if such a 
man as this will fall into contempt on account of his poverty? 
But substitute for him an average, ordinary, uninteresting minis- 
ter ; obese, dumpy, neither ill-natured nor good-natured ; neither 
learned nor ignorant, striding over the stiles to church, with a 
second-rate wife — dusty and deliquescent — and four parochial 
children, full of catechism and bread and butter ; or let him be seen 
in one of those Shem-Ham-and-Japhet buggies, made on Mount 
Ararat soon after the subsidence of the waters, driving in the High 
Street of Edmonton ; — among all his pecuniary, saponaceous, 



REPLY TO AN ATTACK. 341 

oleaginous parishioners. Can any man of common sense say that 
all these outward circumstances of the ministers of religion have no 
bearing on religion itself ? * 



REPLY TO THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER. 

You must have read an attack upon me by the Bishop of Glouces- 
ter, f in the course of which he says that I have not been appointed 
to my situation as canon of St. Paul's for my piety and learning, 
but because I am a scoffer and a jester. Is not this rather strong 
for a bishop, and does it not appear to you, Mr. Archdeacon, as 
rather too close an imitation of that language which is used in the 
apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish ? "Whether I have been 
appointed for my piety or not, must depend upon what this poor man 
means by piety. He means by that word, of course, a defence of 
all the tyrannical and oppressive abuses of the church which have 
been swept away within the last fifteen or twenty years of my life ; 
the corporation and test acts ; the penal laws against the Catholics ; 
the compulsory marriages of dissenters, and all those disabling and 
disqualifying laws which were the disgrace of our church, and 
which he has always looked up to as the consummation of human 
wisdom. If piety consisted in the defence of these — if it was im- 
pious to struggle for their abrogation, I have, indeed, led an un- 
godly life. 

There is nothing pompous gentlemen are so much afraid of as 
a little humour. It is like the objection of certain cephalic ani- 
malcule to the use of small-tooth combs — "Finger and thumb, 
precipitate powder, or anything else you please ; but for Heaven's 

* Compare Smith's picture of A Curate, in his article "Persecuting Bishops" 
(Ed. Rev. Nov. 1822):— 

"A curate — there is something which excites compassion in the very name 
of a curate ! ! ! How any man of purple, palaces, and preferment, ( ' :111 let 
himself loose against this poor workman of God, we are at a loss to conceive 
— a learned man in a hovel, with sermons and saucepans, lexicons and 
bacon, Hebrew books and ragged children — good and patient — a comforter 
and a preacher — the first and purest pauper in the hamlet, and yet showing, 
that, in the midst of his worldly misery, he has the heart of a gentleman and 
the spirit of a Christian, and the kindness of a pastor." 

t James Henry Monk, appointed Bishop of Gloucester in 1830. He has 
published various sermons and charges, an edition of the Alccstis of Euripides, 
and a life of Richard Bentley. 



342 PRELATES AND PROMOTION. 

sake no small-tooth combs !" After all, I believe Bishop Monk 
has been the cause of much more laughter than ever I have been ; 
I cannot account for it, but I never see him enter a room without 
exciting a smile on every countenance within it. 

Dr. Monk is furious at my attacking the heads of the church ; 
but how can I help it ? If the heads of the church are at the head 
of the mob, if I find the best of men doing that which has in all 
times drawn upon the worst enemies of the human race the bitter- 
est curses of history, am I to stop because the motives of these men 
are pure, and their lives blameless ? I wish I could find a blot in 
their lives, or a vice in their motives. The whole power of the 
motion is in the character of the movers ; feeble friends, false 
friends, and foolish friends, all cease to look into the measure, and 
say, "Would such a measure have been recommended by such men 
as the prelates of Canterbury and London, if it were not for the 
public advantage ?" And in this way the great good of a religious 
establishment, now rendered moderate and compatible with all 
men's liberties and rights, is sacrificed to names ; and the church de- 
stroyed from good breeding and etiquette ! the real truth is, that 
Canterbury and London have been frightened — they have over- 
looked the effect of time and delay — they have been betrayed 
into a fearful and ruinous mistake. Painful as it is to teach men 
who ought to teach us, the legislature ought, while there is yet 
time, to awake and read them this lesson. 

It is dangerous for a prelate to write; and whoever does it 
ought to be a very wise one. He has speculated why I was made 
a canon of St. Paul's. Suppose I were to follow his example, 
and, going through the bench of bishops, were to ask for what 
reason each man had been made a bishop ; suppose I were to go 
into the county of Gloucester, &c, &c, &c. ! ! ! ! ! 

I was afraid the bishop would attribute my promotion to the 
Edinburgh Review ; but upon the subject of promotion by reviews, 
he preserves an impenetrable silence. If my excellent patron, Earl 
Grey, had any reasons of this kind, he may at least be sure that 
the reviews commonly attributed to me, were really written by me. 
I should have considered myself as the lowest of created beings, to 
have disguised myself in another man's wit and sense, and to have 
received a reward to which I was not entitled.* 

* I understand that the bishop bursts into tears every now and then, and 



GLOUCESTER. 348 

I presume that what has drawn upon me the indignation of this 
prelate, is the observations I have, from time to time, made on the 
conduct of the Commissioners, of which he positively asserts himself 
to have been a member ; but whether he was, or was not, a member, 
I utterly acquit him of all possible blame, and of every species of 
imputation which may attach to the conduct of the Commission. 
In using that word, I have always meant the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, the Bishop of London, and Lord John Russell ; and have, 
honestly speaking, given no more heed to the Bishop of Glouces- 
ter, than if he had been sitting in a commission of Bonzes in the 
Court of Pekin. 

To read, however, his Lordship a lesson of good manners, I had 
proposed for him a chastisement which would have been echoed 
from the Seagrave who banqueteth in the Castle to the idiot who 
spitteth over the bridge at Gloucester ; but the following appeal 
struck my eye, and stopped my pen : " Since that time my in- 
adequate qualifications have sustained an appalling diminution by 
the affection of my eyes, which has impaired my vision, and the 
progress of which threatens to consign me to darkness ; I beg the 
benefit of your prayers to the Father of all mercies, that he will 
restore to me the better use of the visual organs, to be employed 
on his service ; or that he will inwardly illumine the intellectual 
vision, with a particle of that divine ray, which his Holy Spirit 
can alone impart." 

It might have been better taste, perhaps, if a mitred invalid, in 
describing his bodily infirmities before a church full of clergymen, 
whose prayers he asked, had been a little more sparing in the 
abuse of his enemies; but a good deal must be forgiven to the 
sick. I wisli that every Christian was as well aware as this poor 
bishop of what he needed from Divine assistance; and in his sup- 
plication for the restoration of his sight, and the improvement of 
his understanding, I most fervently and cordially join. 

says that I have set him the name of Simon [ante. ]>. 338], and that all the 
bishops now call him Simon. Simon of Gloucester, however, after all, is a 
real writer, and how could I know that Dr. Monk's name was Simon ' Wluai 
tutor in Lord Carrington's family, he was called by the endearing, though 
somewhat uninajestic name of Dick; and if I had thought aboul his name ai 
all, I should have called him Richard of Gloucester. — Author's Note. 



344 RAILWAYS. 



LETTERS ON RAILWAYS. 



LOCKING IN ON RAILWAYS. 



To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle : — 

Sir : It falls to iny lot to travel frequently on the Great Western 
Railway, and I request permission, through the medium of your 
able and honest journal, to make a complaint against the directors 
of that company. It is the custom on that railway to lock the 
passengers in on both sides — a custom which, in spite of the 
dreadful example at Paris, I have every reason to believe they 
mean to continue without any relaxation. 

In the course of a long life I have no recollection of any acci- 
dent so shocking as that on the Paris railway* — a massacre so 
sudden, so full of torment — death at the moment of pleasure — 
death aggravated by all the amazement, fear, and pain, which can 
be condensed into the last moments of existence. 

Who can say that the same scene may not be acted over again 
on the Great Western Railroad? — that in the midst of their tun- 
nel of three miles length, the same scene of slaughter and com- 
bustion may not scatter dismay and alarm over the whole country ? 

It seems to me perfectly monstrous that a board of ten or twelve 
monopolists can read such a description, and say to the public, 
" You must run your chance of being burnt or mutilated. We 

# The accident in May, 1842, on the Versailles line, near Meudon. By the 
breaking of the axle of the first engine, the other engine and cars attached 
were forced forward and set fire to. In consequence of keeping the doors of 
the cars locked, more than a hundred persons were burnt alive, without pos- 
sibility of escape. 



LOCKING DOORS. 345 

have arranged our plan upon the locking-in system, and we shall 
not incur the risk and expense of changing it." 

The plea is, that rash or drunken people will attempt to get 
out of the carriages which are not locked, and that this measure 
really originates from attention to the safety of the public ; so 
that the lives of two hundred persons who are not drunk, and are 
not rash, are to be endangered for the half-yearly preservation of 
some idiot, upon whose body the coroner is to sit, and over whom 
the sudden-death man is to deliver his sermon against the directors. 

The very fact of locking the doors will be a frequent source of 
accidents. Mankind, whatever the directors may think of that 
process, are impatient of combustion. The Paris accident will 
never be forgotten. The passengers will attempt to escape through 
the windows, and ten times more of mischief will be done than if 
they had been left to escape by the doors in the usual manner. 

It is not only the locking of the doors which is to be deprecated ; 
but the effects which it has upon the imagination. Women, old 
people, and the sick, are all forced to travel by the railroad ; and 
for two hundred miles they live under the recollection, not only of 
impending danger, but under the knowledge that escape is impos- 
sible — a journey comes to be contemplated with horror. Men 
cannot persuade the females of their families to travel by the 
railroad ; it is inseparably connected with abominable tyranny and 
perilous imprisonment. 

Why does the necessity of locking both doors exist only on the 
Great Western ? Why is one of the doors left open on all other 
railways ? 

The public have a right to every advantage under permitted 
monopoly which they would enjoy under free competition ; and 
they are unjust to themselves if they do not insist upon this right. 
If there were two parallel railways, the one locking you in, and 
the other not, is there the smallest doubt which would carry away 
all the business? Can there be any hesitation in which timid 
women, drunken men, sages, philosophers, bishops, and all com- 
bustible beings, would place, themselves? 

I very much doubt the legality of locking doors, and refusing (o 
open them. I arrive at a station where others are admitted ; hut 
I am not suffered to get out, though perhaps at the point of death. 
In all other positions of life there is (><j;vc<^ where there is ingress. 

15 



846 directors' philanthropy. 

Man is universally the master of his own body, except he chooses 
to go from Paddington to Bridgewater: there only the Habeas 
Corpus is refused. 

Nothing, in fact, can be more utterly silly or mistaken than this 
over-officious care of the public; as if every man, who was riot a 
railway director, was a child or a fool. But why stop here? 
Why are not strait- waistcoats used ? Why is not the accidental 
traveller strapped down ? Why do contusion and fracture still 
remain physically possible ? 

Is not this extreme care of the public new ? When first mail- 
coaches began to travel twelve miles an hour, the outsides (if I 
remember rightly) were never tied to the roof. In packets, lands- 
men are not locked into the cabin to prevent them from tumbling 
overboard. This affectionate nonsense prevails only on the Great 
Western. It is there only that men, women, and children (seeking 
the only mode of transit which remains), are, by these tender- 
hearted monopolists, immediately committed to their locomotive 
prisons. Nothing can, in fact, be so absurd as all this officious 
zeal. It is the duty of the directors to take all reasonable precau- 
tions to warn the public of danger — to make it clear that there is 
no negligence on the part of the railroad directors ; and then, this 
done, if a fool-hardy person choose to expose himself to danger, 
so be it. Fools there will be on roads of iron, and on roads of 
gravel, and they must suffer for their folly ; but why are Socrates, 
Solon, and Solomon, to be locked up ? 

But is all this, which appears so philanthropical, mere philan- 
thropy ? Does not the locking of the doors save servants and 
policemen? Does not economy mingle with these benevolent 
feelings ? Is it to save a few fellow-creatures, or a few pounds, 
that the children of the West are to be hermetically sealed in the 
locomotives ? I do not say it is so ; but I say it deserves a very 
serious examination whether it be so or not. Great and heavy is 
the sin of the directors of this huge monopoly, if they repeat upon 
their own iron the tragedy of Paris, in order to increase their 
dividends a few shillings per cent. 

The country has (perhaps inevitably) given way to this great 
monopoly. Nothing can make it tolerable for a moment, but the 
most severe and watchful jealousy of the manner in which its 
powers are exercised. We shall have tyrannical rules, vexatious 



THE FEMALE HOMO. 847 

rules, ill-temper, pure folly, and meddling and impertinent pater- 
nity. It is the absolute duty of Lord Ripon and Mr. Gladstone 
(if the directors prove themselves to be so inadequate to the new 
situation in which they are placed) to restrain and direct them by 
law ; and if these two gentlemen are afraid of the responsibility 
of such laws, they are deficient in the moral courage which their 
office requires, and the most important interests of the public are 
neglected. I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Sydney Smith. 
May 21, 1842. 



"LOCKING-IN" ON RAILWAYS. 
To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle : — 

Sir : Since the letter upon railroads which you were good 
enough to insert in your paper, I have had some conversation with 
two gentlemen officially connected with the Great Western. Though 
nothing could be more courteous than their manner, nor more in- 
telligible than their arguments, I remain unshaken as to the neces- 
sity of keeping the doors open. 

There is in the first place, the effect of imagination, the idea 
that all escape is impossible, that (let what will happen) you must 
sit quiet in first class No. 2, whether they are pounding you into a 
jam, or burning you into a cinder, or crumbling you into a human 
powder. These excellent directors, versant in wood and metal, 
seem to require that the imagination should be sent by some other 
conveyance, and that only loads of unimpassioned, unintellectual 
flesh and blood should be darted along on the Western rail ; 
whereas, the female homois a screaming, parturient, interjectional, 
hysterical animal, whose delicacy and timidity monopolists (even 
much as it may surprise them) must be taught to consult. The 
female, in all probability, never would jump out; but she thinks 
she may jump out when she pleases; and this i> intensely com- 
fortable. 

There are two sorts of dangers which hang over railroads. The 
one, retail dangers, where individuals only are concerned ; the 
other, wholesale dangers, where the whole train, or a considerable 
part of it, is put in jeopardy. For the first danger there ;.-; a rem- 
edy in the prudence of individuals; for the second, there is none. 



348 A HEMIPLEGIAN LAW. 

No man need be drunk, nor need lie jump out when the carriage 
is in motion, but in the present state of science it is impossible to 
guard effectually against the fracture of the axletree, or the explo- 
sion of the engine ; and if the safety of the one party cannot be 
consulted but by the dangers of the other, if the foolish cannot be 
restrained but by the unjust incarceration of the wise, the prior 
consideration is due to those who have not the remedy for the evil 
in their own hands.. 

But the truth is — and so (after a hundred monopolizing exper- 
iments on public patience) the railroad directors will find it — there 
can be no other dependence for the safety of the public than the 
care which every human being is inclined to take of his own life 
and limbs. Everything beyond this is the mere lazy tyranny of 
monopoly, which makes no distinction between human beings and 
brown paper parcels. If riding were a monopoly, as travelling in 
carriages is now become, there are many gentlemen whom I see 
riding in the Park upon such false principles, that I am sure the 
cantering and galloping directors would strap them, in the ardour 
of their affection, to the saddle, padlock them to the stirrups, or 
compel them to ride behind a policeman of the stables ; and noth- 
ing but a motion from O'Brien, or an order from Gladstone, could 
release them. 

Let the company stick up all sorts of cautions and notices within 
their carriages and without ; but, after that, no doors locked. If 
one door is allowed to be locked, the other will soon be so too ; 
there is no other security to the public than absolute prohibition 
of the practice. The directors and agents of the Great Western 
are individually excellent men ; but the moment men meet in pub- 
lic boards, they cease to be collectively excellent. The fund of 
morality becomes less, as the individual contributors increase in 
number. I do not accuse such respectable men of any wilful vio- 
lation of truth, but the memoirs which they are about to present 
will be, without the scrupulous cross-examination of a committee 
of the House of Commons, mere waste-paper. 

But the most absurd of all legislative enactments is this hemi- 
plegian law — an act of Parliament to protect one side of the body 
and not the other. If the wheel comes off on the right, the open 
door is uppermost, and every one is saved. If, from any sudden 
avalanche on the road, the carriage is prostrated to the left, the 



RAILWAY TRAVELLING. 349 

locked door is uppermost, all escape is impossible, and the railroad 
martyrdom begins. 

Leave me to escape in the best way I can, as the fire-officers very 
kindly permit me to do. I know very well the danger of getting 
out on the off-side ; but escape is the affair of a moment ; suppose 
a train to have passed at that moment, I know I am safe from any 
other trains for twenty minutes or half an hour ; and if I do get 
out on the off-side I do not remain in the valley of death between 
the two trains, but am over to the opposite bank in an instant — 
only half-roasted or merely browned, certainly not done enough 
for the Great Western directors. 

On Saturday morning last, the wheel of the public carriage, in 
which a friend of mine was travelling, began to smoke, but was 
pacified by several buckets of water, and proceeded. After five 
more miles, the whole carriage was full of smoke, the train was 
with difficulty stopped, and the flagrant vehicle removed. The 
axle was nearly in two, and in another mile would have been 
severed. 

Railroad travelling is a delightful improvement of human life. 
Man is become a bird; he can fly. longer and quicker than a Solan 
goose. The mamma rushes sixty miles in two hours to the aching 
finger of her conjugating and declining grammar-boy. The early 
Scotchman scratches himself in the morning mists of the north, 
and has porridge in Piccadilly, before the setting sun. The Pusey- 
ite priest, after a rush of one hundred miles, appears with his little 
volume of nonsense at the breakfast of his bookseller. Everything 
is near, everything is immediate — time, distance, and delay, are 
abolished. But, though charming and fascinating as all this is, 
we must not shut our eyes to the price we shall pay for it. There 
will be every three or four years some dreadful massacre — whole 
trains will be hurled down a precipice, and two hundred or three 
hundred persons will be killed on the spot. There will be (>\i>vy 
now and then a great combustion of human bodies, as there lias 
been at Paris; then all the newspapers up in arms — a thousand 
regulations forgotten as soon as the directors dare — loud screams 
of the velocity whistle — monopoly locks and holts as before. 

The locking plea of directors is philanthropy; and I admit that 
to guard men from the commission of moral evil is as philanthropi- 
cal as to prevent physical suffering. There is, I allow, a strong 



350 SACRIFICES A BISHOP. 

propensity in mankind to travel on railroads without paying ; and 
to lock mankind in till they have completed their share of the -con- 
tract, is benevolent, because it guards the species from degrading 
and immoral conduct ; but to burn or crush a whole train, merely 
to prevent a few immoral insides from not paying, is, I hope, a 
little more than Ripon or Gladstone will bear. 

We have been, up to this point, very careless of our railway 
regulations. The first person of rank who is killed will put every- 
thing in order, and produce a code of the most careful rules. I 
hope it will not be one of the bench of bishops ; but should it be 
so destined, let the burned bishop — the unwilling Latimer — re- 
member that, however painful gradual concoction by fire may be, 
his death will produce unspeakable benefit to the public. Even 
Sodor and Man will be better than nothing. From that moment 
the bad effects of the monopoly are destroyed ; no more fatal defer- 
ence to the directors ; no despotic incarceration ; no barbarous in- 
attention to the anatomy and physiology of the human body ; no 
commitment to locomotive prisons, with warrant. We shall then 
find it possible — 

' ( Voyager libre sans mourir." 

Sydney Smith. 
June 7, 1842. 



BURNING ALIVE ON RAILROADS. 

To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle: — 

Sir : — Having gradually got into this little controversy respect- 
ing the burning human beings alive on the railroads, I must beg leave, 
preparatory to the introduction of the bill, to say a few more words 
on the subject. If I could have my will in these matters, I would 
introduce into the bill a clause absolutely prohibitory of all lock- 
ing doors on railroads ; but as that fascinating board, the Board of 
Trade, does not love this, and as the public may, after some repe- 
titions of roasted humanity, be better prepared for such peremptory 
legislation, the better method, perhaps, will be, to give to the Board 
of Trade the power of opening doors (one or both), with the custom- 
ary penalties against the companies for disobedience of orders, and 
then the Board may use this power as the occasion may require. 

To pass a one-legged law, giving power over one door, and not 
the other, would, perhaps be too absurd for human endurance. If 



SAFETY DEMANDED. 351 

railroad companies were aware of their real and extended inter- 
ests, they would not harass the public by vexatious regulations, 
nor, under the plea of humanity (though really for purposes of 
economy), expose them to serious peril. The country are very 
angry with themselves for having granted the monopoly, and very 
angry for the instances of carelessness and oppression which have 
appeared in the working of the system: the heaviest fines are inflict- 
ed by coroner's juries, the heaviest damages are given by common 
juries. Railroads have daily proof of their unpopularity. If Par- 
liament get out of temper with these metallic ways, they will visit 
them with laws of iron, and burst upon them with the high pres- 
sure of despotism. 

The wayfaring men of the North will league with the wayfaring 
men of the West — South and East will join hand in hand against 
them. All the points of the compass will combine against these ven- 
ders of velocity and traders in transition. I hope a clause will be 
introduced, compelling the Board of Trade to report twice a year to 
Parliament, upon the accidents of railroads, their causes, and their 
prevention. The public know little or nothing of what happens 
on the rail. All the men with letters upon the collars of their 
coats are sworn to secrecy — nothing can be extracted from them ; 
when anything happens they neither appear to see nor hear you. 

In case of conflagration, you would be to them as so many joints 
on the spit. It has occurred to five hundred persons, that soft im- 
pediments behind and before (such as wool), would prevent the 
dangers of meeting or overtaking. It is not yet understood why a 
carriage on fire at the end of the train cannot be seen by the driver 
of the engine. All this may be great nonsense ; but the public ought 
to know that these points have been properly considered ; they 
should know that there are a set of officers paid to watch over their 
interests, and to guard against the perpetual encroachments, the 
carelessness, the insolence, and the avarice of monopoly. 

Why do not our dear Ripon and our youthful Gladstone see 
this, and come cheerfully to the rescue? and instead of wrapping 
themselves up in transcendental philosophy, and the principles of 
letting-aloneness, why do they not at once do what ought to be done 
— what must be done — and what, after many needless butcheries, 
they will at last be compelled to do ? Yours, Sydney Smith. 

June 18, 1842. 



352 SIR ROBERT PEEL. 

[Sir Robert Peel having insinuated, in the House of Commons, 
that the zeal of Sydney Smith in the Railway Question might be 
owing to personal fear, the following characteristic reply appeared 
in a daily paper.] 

To Sir Robert Peel : — 

A cruel attack upon me, Sir Robert, to attribute all my inter- 
ference with the arbitrary proceedings of railroads to personal fear. 
Nothing can be more ungrateful and unkind. I thought only of 
you, and for you, as many whig gentlemen will bear me testimony, 
who rebuked me for my anxiety. I said to myself and to them, 
" Our lovely and intrepid minister may be overthrown on the rail. 
The locked door may be uppermost. He will kick and call on the 
Speaker and Sergeant-at-Arms in vain. Nothing will remain of 
all his graces, his flexibility, his fascinating, facetious fun, his social 
warmth ; nothing of his flow of soul, of his dear heavy pleasantry, 
of his prevailing skill to impart disorderly wishes to the purest 
heart. Nothing will remain of it at all, but a heap of ashes for 
the parish church of Tarn worth. He perishes at the moment he 
is becoming as powerful in the drawing-room of Court as in the 
House of Parliament — at the moment when Hullah (not without 
hopes of ultimate success), is teaching him to sing and Melnotte 
to dance." 

I have no doubt of your bravery, Sir Robert, though you have 
of mine ; but then consider what different lives we have led, and 
what a school of courage is that troop of yeomanry at Tamworth, 
the Tory Fencibles. Who can doubt of your courage who has 
seen you at their head, marching up Pitt street, through Dundas 
square, on the Liverpool lane, and looking all the while like those 
beautiful medals of Bellona Frigida and Mars sine sanguine, the 
very horses looking at you as if you were going to take away 
three per cent, of their oats ! After such spectacles as these, the 
account you give of your own courage cannot be doubted. The 
only little circumstance which I cannot entirely reconcile to the 
possession of this very high attribute in so eminent a degree is, 
that you should have selected, for your uncourteous attack, enemies 
who cannot resent, and a place where there can be no reply. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Sydney Smith. 



PETITION TO CONGRESS. 353 



LETTERS ON AMERICAN DEBTS. 



The Humble Petition of the Rev. Sydney Smith to the 
House of Congress at Washington. 

I petition your honourable House to institute some measures 
for the restoration of American credit, and for the repayment of 
debts incurred and repudiated by several of the States. Your 
Petitioner lent to the State of Pennsylvania a sum of money, for 
the purpose of some public improvement. The amount, though 
small, is to him important, and is a saving from a life income, 
made with difficulty and privation. If their refusal to pay (from 
which a very large number of English families are suffering) had 
been the result of war, produced by the unjust aggression of 
powerful enemies ; if it had arisen from civil discord ; if it had 
proceeded from an improvident application of means in the first 
years of self-government ; if it were the act of a poor State strug- 
gling against the barrenness of nature — every friend of America 
would have been contented to wait for better times ; but the fraud 
is committed in the profound peace of Pennsylvania, by the 
richest State in the Union, after the wise investment of the bor- 
rowed money in roads and canals, of which the repudiators are 
every day reaping the advantage. It is an act of had faith which 
(all its circumstances considered) has no parallel, and no excuse. 

Nor is it only the loss of property which your Petitioner laments. 
He laments still more that immense power which the had faith of 
America has given to aristocrat ical opinions, and to the enemies of 
free institutions in the old world. It is vain any Longer to appeal 
to history, and to point out the wrongs which the many have 



354 INJUEY TO FREEDOM. 

received from the few. The Americans, who boast to have im- 
proved the institutions of the old world, have at least equalled its 
crimes. A great nation, after trampling under foot all earthly 
tyranny, has been guilty of a fraud as enormous as ever disgraced 
the worst king of the most degraded nation of Europe. 

It is most painful to your Petitioner to see that American cit- 
izens excite, wherever they may go, the recollection that they 
belong to a dishonest people, who pride themselves on having 
tricked and pillaged Europe ; and this mark is fixed by their faith- 
less legislators on some of the best and most honourable men in 
the world, whom every Englishman has been eager to see and 
proud to receive. 

It is a subject of serious concern to your Petitioner that you are 
losing all that power which the friends of freedom rejoiced that 
you possessed, looking upon you as the ark of human happiness, 
and the most splendid picture of justice and of wisdom that the 
world had yet seen. Little did the friends of America expect it, 
and sad is the spectacle to see you rejected by every State hi 
Europe, as a nation with whom no contract can be made, because 
none will be kept ; unstable in the very foundations of social life, 
deficient in the elements of good faith, men who prefer any load 
of infamy however great, to any pressure of taxation however 
light. 

Nor is it only this gigantic bankruptcy for so many degrees of 
longitude and latitude which your petitioner deplores, but he is 
alarmed also by that total want of shame with which these things 
have been done ; the callous immorality with which Europe has 
been plundered, that deadness of the moral sense which seems to 
preclude all return to honesty, to perpetuate this new infamy, and 
to threaten its extension over every State in the Union. 

To any man of real philanthropy, who receives pleasure from 
the improvements of the world, the repudiation of the public 
debts of America, and the shameless manner in which it has been 
talked of and done, is the most melancholy event which has hap- 
pened during the existence of the present generation. Your Pe- 
titioner sincerely prays that the great and good men still existing 
among you may, by teaching to the United States the deep dis- 
grace they have incurred in the whole world, restore them to moral 
health, to that high position they have lost, and which, for the 



THE AMERICAN DIVIDENDS. 855 

happiness of mankind, it is so important they should ever main- 
tain ; for the United States are now working out the greatest of 
all political problems, and upon that confederacy the eyes of 
thinking men are intensely fixed, to see how far the mass of man- 
kind can be trusted with the management of their own affairs, 
and the establishment of their own happiness. 

Mat 18, 1843. 



LETTER I. 

To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle : — 

Sir : You did me the favour, some time since, to insert in your 
valuable journal a petition of mine to the American Congress, for 
the repayment of a loan made by me, in common with many other 
unwise people, to the State of Pennsylvania. For that petition I 
have been abused in the grossest manner by many of the Ameri- 
can papers. After some weeks' reflection, I see no reason to alter 
my opinions, or to retract my expressions. What I then said was 
not wild declamation, but measured truth. I repeat again, that no 
conduct was ever more profligate than that of the State of Penn- 
sylvania. History cannot pattern it: and let no deluded being 
imagine that they will ever repay a single farthing — their people 
have tasted of the dangerous luxury of dishonesty, and they will 
never be brought back to the homely rule of right. The money 
transactions of the Americans are become a by-word among the 
nations of Europe. In every grammar-school of the old world 
ad Grcecas Calendas is translated — the American dividends. 

I am no enemy to America. I loved and admired honest 
America when she respected the laws of pounds, shillings, and 
pence; and I thought the United States the most magnificent pic- 
ture of human happiness: I meddle now in these matters he- 
cause I hate fraud — because I pity the misery it lias occasioned 
— because I mourn over the hatred it has excited against W'^^ in- 
stitutions. 

Among the discussions to which the moral lubricities of this in- 
solvent people have given birth, they have arrogated to them- 
selves the right of sitting in judgment upon the property of their 
creditors — of deciding who among them is rich, and who poor, 



356 EXHAUSTION. 

and who are proper objects of compassionate payment ; but in the 
name of Mercury, the great god of thieves, did any man ever hear 
of debtors alleging the wealth of the lender as a reason for eluding 
the payment of the loan ? Is the Stock Exchange a place for the 
tables of the money-lenders; or is it a school of moralists, who 
may amerce the rich, exalt the poor, and correct the inequalities 
of fortune ? Is Biddle an instrument in the hand of Providence 
to exalt the humble, and send the rich empty away? Does 
American Providence work with such instruments as Biddle ? 

But the only good part of this bad morality is not acted upon. 
The rich are robbed, but the poor are not paid : they growl against 
the dividends of Dives, and don't lick the sores of Lazarus. 
They seize, with loud acclamations, on the money-bags of Jones 
Loyd, Rothschild, and Baring, but they do not give back the pit- 
tance of the widow, and the bread of the child. Those knaves 
of the setting sun may call me rich, for I have a twentieth part 
of the income of the Archbishop of Canterbury; but the curate 
of the next parish is a wretched soul, bruised by adversity ; and 
the three hundred pounds for his children, which it has taken 
his life to save, is eaten and drunken by the mean men of Penn- 
sylvania — by men who are always talking of the virtue and hon- 
our of the United States — by men who soar above others in 
what they say, and sink below all nations in what they do — who, 
after floating on the heaven of declamation, fall down to feed on 
the offal and garbage of the earth. 

Persons who are not in the secret are inclined to consider the 
abominable conduct of the repudiating States to proceed from 
exhaustion — " They don't pay because they cannot pay ; whereas, 
from estimates which have just now reached this country, this is 
the picture of the finances of the insolvent states. Their debts 
may be about 200 millions of dollars ; at an interest of 6 per cent., 
this makes an annual charge of 12 millions of dollars, which is little 
more than 1 per cent, of their income in 1840, and may be 
presumed to be less than 1 per cent, of their present income ; but 
if they were all to provide funds for the punctual payment of 
interest, the debt could readily be converted into a 4 or 5 per cent, 
stock, and the excess, converted into a sinking fund, would dis- 
charge the debt in less than thirty years. The debt of Pennsyl- 
vania, estimated at 40 millions of dollars, bears, at 5 per cent., 



A PARTITION SUIT. 357 

an annual interest of 2 millions. The income of this State was, 
in 1840, 131 millions of dollars, and is probably at this time not 
less than 150 millions : a net revenue of only 1^ per cent, would 
produce the 2 millions required. So that the price of national 
character in Pennsylvania is 1-^ per cent, on the net income ; and 
if this market price of morals were established here, a gentleman 
of a thousand a year would deliberately and publicly submit 
to infamy for £15 per annum ; and a poor man, who by laborious 
industry had saved one hundred a year, would incur general 
disgrace and opprobrium for thirty shillings by the year. There 
really should be lunatic asylums for nations as well as for in- 
dividuals. 

But they begin to feel all this : their tone is changed ; they talk 
with bated breath and whispering apology, and allay with some 
cold drops of modesty their skipping spirit. They strutted into 
this miserable history, and begin to think of sneaking out. 

And then the subdolous press of America contends that the 
English under similar circumstances would act with their own 
debt in the same manner ; but there are many English constituen- 
cies where are thousands not worth a shilling, and no such idea 
has been broached among them, nor has any petition to such effect 
been presented to the legislature. But what if they did act in 
such a manner, would it be a conduct less wicked than that of the 
Americans? Is there not one immutable law of justice? — is it 
not written in the book ? Does it not beat in the heart ? — are the 
great guide-marks of life to be concealed by such nonsense as this ? 
I deny the fact on which the reasoning is founded; and if the 
facts were true, the reasoning would be false. 

I never meet a Pennsylvanian at a London dinner without 
feeling a disposition to seize and divide him; — to allot his beaver 
to one sufferer and his coat to another — to appropriate his pocket- 
handkerchief to the orphan, and to comfort the widow with his 
silver watch, Broadway rings, and the London Guide, which he 
always carries in his pocket3. How such a man can ^"\ himself 
down at an English table withoul feeling thai he owes two or 
three pounds to every man in company I am a! a loss to conceive: 
he has no more right to eal with honest men than ;> leper haa to 
eat with <•!'•;»!] men. If he lias a particle of honour in his compor 
sition he should shut himself up, and say, u I cannot mingle with 



358 WAR AND CREDIT. 

you, I belong to a degraded people — I must hide myself— I am 
a plunderer from Pennsylvania." 

Figure to yourself a Pennsylvanian receiving foreigners , in his 
own country, walking over the public works with them, and 
showing them Larcenous Lake, Swindling Swamp, Crafty Canal, 
and Rogues' Railway, and other dishonest works. " This swamp 
we gained," says the patriotic borrower, " by the repudiated loan of 
1828. Our canal robbery was in 1830; we pocketed your good 
people's money for the railroad only last year." All this may 
seem very smart to the Americans ; but if I had the misfortnne to 
be born among such a people, the land of my fathers should not 
retain me a single moment after the act of repudiation. I would 
appeal from my fathers to my forefathers. I would fly to New- 
gate for greater purity of thought, and. seek in the prisons of Eng- 
land for better rules of life. 

This new and vain people can never forgive us for having pre- 
ceded them 300 years in civilization. They are prepared to enter 
into the most bloody wars in England, not on account of Oregon, 
or boundaries, or right of search, but because our clothes and 
carriages are better made, and because Bond Street beats Broad- 
way. Wise Webster does all he can to convince the people that 
these are not lawful causes of war ; but wars, and long wars, they 
will one day or another produce; and this, perhaps, is the only 
advantage of repudiation. The Americans cannot gratify their 
avarice and ambition at once ; they cannot cheat and conquer at 
the same time. The warlike power of every country depends on 
their Three per cents. If Caesar were to reappear upon earth, 
Wettenhall's List would be more important than his Commentaries ; 
Rothschild would open and shut the temple of Janus ; Thomas 
Baring, or Bates, would probably command the Tenth Legion, 
and the soldiers would march to battle with loud cries of Scrip 
and Omnium reduced, Consols and Caesar ! Now, the Americans 
have cut themselves off from all resources of credit. Having been 
as dishonest as they can be, they are prevented from being as 
foolish as they wish to be. In the whole habitable globe they 
cannot borrow a guinea, and they cannot draw the sword because 
they have not money to buy it. 

If I were an American of any of the honest States, I would 
rest till I had compelled Pennsylvania to be as honest as 



; \ t'i 



PRINCIPLES. 359 

myself. The bad faith of that State brings disgrace on all ; just 
as common snakes are killed because vipers are dangerous. I 
have a general feeling, that by that breed of men I have been 
robbed and ruined, and I shudder and keep aloof. The pecuniary 
credit of every State is affected by Pennsylvania. Ohio pays ; 
but with such a bold bankruptcy before their eyes, how long will 
Ohio pay? The truth is, that the eyes of all capitalists are 
averted from the United States. The finest commercial under- 
standings will have nothing to do with them. Men rigidly just, 
who penetrate boldly into the dealings of nations, and work with 
vigour and virtue for honourable wealth — great and high-minded 
merchants — will loathe, and are now loathing, the name of Amer- 
ica : it is becoming, since its fall, the common-shore of Europe, and 
the native home of the needy villain. 

And now, drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania, there is yet a 
moment left: the eyes of all Europe are anchored upon you — 

" Surrexit mundus justis funis :" 

start up from that trance of dishonesty into which you are plunged ; 
don't think of the flesh which walls about your life, but of that 
sin which has hurled you from the heaven of character, which 
hangs over you like a devouring pestilence, and makes good men 
sad, and ruffians dance and sing. It is not for Gin Sling and 
Sherry Cobler alone that man is to live, but for those great prin- 
ciples against which no argument can be listened to — princij^les 
which give to every power a double power above their functions 
and their offices, which are the books, the arts, the academies that 
teach, lift up, and nourish the world — principles (I am quite seri- 
ous in what I say) above cash, superior to cotton, higher than 
currency — principles, without which it is better to die than to live 
which every servant of God, over every sen and in all land.-, 
should cherish — usque ad abdita spir amenta animce. 

Yours, &c. SYDNEY Smith. 

November 3, 1843. 



LETTER II. 

To the Editor of ///' Morning Chronicle: — 

Sir: Having been unwell for some days past, T have had no 
opportunity of paying my respects to General Duff Green, who 



360 A FABLE PROM PILPAY. 

(whatever be his other merits) has certainly not shown himself a 
Washington in defence of his country. The General demands, 
with a beautiful simplicity, " Whence this morbid hatred of Amer- 
ica V But this question, all-affecting as it is, is stolen from Pil- 
pay's fables. " A fox," says Pilpay, " caught by the leg in a trap 
near the farm-yard, uttered the most piercing cries of distress ; 
forthwith all the birds of the yard gathered round him, and seem- 
ed to delight in his misfortune ; hens chuckled, geese hissed, ducks 
quacked, and chanticleer with shrill cockadoodles rent the air. 
' Whence,' said the fox, stepping forward with infinite gravity, 
' whence this morbid hatred of the fox ? What have I done ? 
Whom have I injured ? I am overwhelmed with astonishment at 
these symptoms of aversion.' ' Oh, you old villain,' the poultry 
exclaimed, 6 Where are our ducklings ? Where are our goslings ? 
Did not I see you running away yesterday with my mother in 
your mouth? Did you not eat up all my relations last week? 
You ought to die the worst of deaths — to be pecked into a thou- 
sand pieces.' " Now hence, General Green, comes the morbid 
hatred of' America, as you term it — because her conduct has 
been predatory — because she has ruined so many helpless chil- 
dren, so many miserable women, so many aged men — because she 
has disturbed the order of the world, and rifled those sacred 
treasures which human virtue had hoarded for human misery. 
Why is such hatred morbid ? Why, is it not just, inevitable, in- 
nate? Why, is it not disgraceful to want it? Why, is it not 
honourable to feel it ? 

Hate America ! ! ! I have loved and honoured America all my 
life ; and in the Edinburgh Review, and at all opportunities which 
my trumpery sphere of action has afforded, I have never ceased to 
praise and defend the United States ; and to every American to 
whom I have had the good fortune to be introduced, I have proffer- 
ed all the hospitality in my power. But I cannot shut my eyes to 
enormous dishonesty ; nor, remembering their former state, can I 
restrain myself from calling on them (though I copy Satan) to 
spring up from the gulf of infamy in which they are rol- 
ling— 

" Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen." 

I am astonished that the honest States of America do not draw 
a cordon sanitaire round their unpaying brethren — that the truly 



SOLVENT STATES. 361 

mercantile New-Yorkers, and the thoroughly honest people of 
Massachusetts, do not in their European visits wear a uniform 
with " S. S., or Solvent States/' worked in gold letters upon the 
coat, and receipts in full of all demands tamboured on the waist- 
coats, and " our own property" figured on their pantaloons. 

But the General seems shocked that I should say the Americans 
cannot go to war without money : but what do I mean by war ? 
Not irruptions into Canada — not the embodying of militia in Ore- 
gon ; but a long, tedious, maritime war of four or five years' dura- 
tion. Is any man so foolish as to suppose that Rothschild has 
nothing to do with such wars as these ? And that a bankrupt 
State, without the power of borrowing a shilling in the world, may 
not be crippled in such a contest ? We all know that the Ameri- 
cans can fight. Nobody doubts their courage. I see now in my 
mind's eye a whole army on the plains of Pennsylvania in battle 
array, immense corps of insolvent light infantry, regiments of 
heavy horse debtors, battalions of repudiators, brigades of bank- 
rupts, with Vivre sans payer, ou mourir, on their banners, and cere 
alieno on their trumpets : all these desperate debtors would fight to 
the death for their country, and probably drive into the sea their 
invading creditors. Of their courage, I repeat again, I have no 
doubt. I wish I had the same confidence in their wisdom. But 
I believe they will become intoxicated by the flattery of unprinci- 
pled orators ; and, instead of entering with us into a noble compe- 
tition in making calico (the great object for which the Anglo-Sax- 
on race appears to have been created) they will waste their hap- 
piness and their money (if they can get any) in years of silly, 
bloody, foolish, and accursed war, to prove to the world that 
Perkins is a real fine gentleman, and that the carronades of the 
Washington steamer will carry farther than those of the Britisher 
Victoria, or the Robert Peel vessel-of-war. 

I am accused of applying the epithet repudiation to States 
which have not repudiated. Perhaps so; but then these latter 
States have not paid. Put what is the difference between a man 
who says, "I don't owe you anything, and will not pay you," and 
another who says, "I do owe you a sum," and who, having admit- 
ted the debt, never pays ii ? There seems in the firsl to be some 
slight colour of right; but the second is broad, blazing, refulgent, 
meridian fraud. 

16 



362 PENAL PLUMES. 

It may be very true that rich and educated men in Pennsylva- 
nia wish to pay the debt, and that the real objectors are the Dutch 
and German agriculturists, who cannot be made to understand the 
effect of character upon clover. All this may be very true, but it 
is a domestic quarrel. Their church- war dens of reputation must 
make a private rate of infamy for themselves — we have nothing 
to do with this rate. The real quarrel is the Unpaid World versus 
the State of Pennsylvania. 

And now, dear Jonathan, let me beg of you to follow the advice 
of a real friend, who will say to you what Wat Tyler had not the 
virtue to say, and what all speakers in the eleven recent Pennsyl- 
vanian elections have cautiously abstained from saying — "Make a 
great effort ; book up at once, and pay." You have no conception 
of the obloquy and contempt to which you are exposing yourselves 
all over Europe. Bull is naturally disposed to love you, but he 
loves nobody who does not pay him. His imaginary paradise is 
some planet of punctual payment, where ready money prevails, 
and where debt and discount are unknown. As for me, as soon as 
I hear that the last farthing is paid to the last creditor, I will ap- 
pear on my knees at the bar of the Pennsylvanian Senate in the 
plumeopicean robe of American controversy. Each Conscript 
Jonathan shall trickle over me a few drops of tar, and help to dec- 
orate me with those penal plumes in which the vanquished reason- 
er of the transatlantic world does homage to the physical superi- 
ority of his opponents. And now, having eased my soul of its 
indignation, and sold my stock at 40 per cent, discount, I sulkily 
retire from the subject, with a fixed intention of lending no more 
money to free and enlightened republics, but of employing my 
money henceforth in buying up Abyssinian bonds, and purchasing 
into the Turkish Fours, or the Tunis Three-and-a-half per Cent, 
funds. 

Sydney Smith. 
November 22, 1843. 



THE IRISH CHURCH. 363 



A FKAGMENT ON 

THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.* 



The revenue of the Irish Roman Catholic Church is made up 
of half-pence, potatoes, rags, bones, and fragments of old clothes, 

^ This unrevised fragment was found among the papers of Sydney Smith 
after his death. It was first published in April, 1845, with the prefatory 
remark that, "if it serve no other purpose, will, at least, prove that his last, 
as well as his earliest efforts, were exerted for the promotion of religious 
freedom, and may satisfy those who have objected to his later writings, be- 
cause his own interest appeared to be bound up with his opinions, that he 
did not hesitate to the last moment of his life, boldly to advocate what he 
considered to be justice to others. " The manuscript was accompanied by the 
following Private Memoranda of Subjects intended to have been introduced 
in the Pamphlet, &c. The subjects marked by a star are treated of in the 
Fragment. 

Debates in the House of Commons in 1825, on the motion of Lord F. 
Egerton, for the support of the Koman Catholic clergy. Printed separ- 
ately, I believe, in Ireland. 
Evidence before the House of Commons, in 1824 and 1825, including 

Doyle's. 
A Speech of Charles Grant's, in 1819, on a motion of James Daly to enforce 

the Insurrection Act. 
Debates on Maynooth, in February last (1844). 
Hard case of the priest's first year. 
Provision offered by Pitt and Castlercagh, and accepted by the hierarchy. 

* Send ambassadors to Constantinople, and refuse to send them to Home. 
England should cast off its connection with the Irish Church. 

Lord F. Egerton's plan for paying the Roman Catholic clergy in 1825. Tho 

prelates agree to take the money. 

=* Old mode of governing by Protestants at an end. 

* Vast improvements since the Union, and fully specified in Martin, page 35. 

* Priests dare not thwart the people, for fear of losing money. 

* Dreadful oppression of the people. 

* Bishops dare not enforce their rules. They must have money. 



364 SHE IS NOT WELL. 

and those Irish old clothes. They worship often in hovels, or in 
the open air, from the want of any place of worship. Their 
religion is the religion of three fourths of the population ! Not 
far off, in a well-windowed and well-roofed house, is a well-paid 
Protestant clergyman, preaching to stools and hassocks, and crying 
in the wilderness ; near him the clerk, near him the sexton, near 
him the sexton's wife — furious against the errors of Popery, and 
willing to lay down their lives for the great truths established at 
the Diet of Augsburg. 

There is a story in the Leinster family which passes under the 
name of 

" She is not well." 

A Protestant clergyman, whose church was in the neighbourhood, 
was a guest at the house of that upright and excellent man, the 
Duke of Leinster. He had been staying there three or four days ; 
and on Saturday night, as they were all retiring to their rooms, 
the duke said, " We shall meet to-morrow at breakfast." " Not so," 
said our Milesian Protestant ; " your hour, my lord, is a little too 
late for me ; I am very particular in the discharge of my duty, and 
your breakfast will interfere with my church." The duke was 
pleased with the very proper excuses of his guest, and they sep- 
arated for the night ; his grace, perhaps, deeming his palace more 
safe from all the evils of life for containing in its bosom such an 
exemplary son of the Church. The first person, however, whom 
the duke saw in the morning, upon entering the breakfast-room, 
was our punctual Protestant, deep in rolls and butter, his finger in 
an egg, and a large slice of the best Tipperary ham secured on his 
plate. " Delighted to see you, my dear vicar," said the duke ; 
" but I must say as much surprised as delighted." " Oh, don't you 
know what has happened ?" said the sacred breakfaster, " she is 
not well" " Who is not well ?" said the duke : " you are not 
married — you have no sister living — I'm quite uneasy; tell me 
who is not well." " Why, the fact is, my lord duke, that my con- 
gregation consists of the clerk, the sexton, and the sexton's wife. 
Now the sexton's wife is in very delicate health : when she cannot 
attend, we cannot muster the number mentioned in the rubric ; and 
we have, therefore, no service on that day. The good woman had 
a cold and sore throat this morning, and, as I had breakfasted but 
slightly, I thought I might as well hurry back to the regular family 



O'CONNELL. 365 

dejeuner." I don't know that the clergyman behaved improperly ; 
but such a church is hardly worth an insurrection and civil war 
every ten years. 

Sir Robert did well in fighting it out with O' Conn ell. He was 
too late ; but when he began he did it boldly and sensibly, and I, 
for one, am heartily glad O'Connell has been found guilty and 
imprisoned. He was either in earnest about Repeal or he was not. 
If he was in earnest, I entirely agree with Lord Grey and Lord 
Spencer, that civil war is preferable to Repeal. Much as I hate 
wounds, dangers, privations, and explosions — much as I love 
regular hours of dinner — foolish as I think men covered with 
the feathers of the male Pullus dqmesticus, and covered with lace 
in the course of the ischiatic nerve — much as I detest all these 
follies and ferocities, I would rather turn soldier myself than 
acquiesce quietly in such a separation of the empire. 

It is such a piece of nonsense, that no man can have any rever- 
ence for himself who would stop to discuss such a question. It is 
such a piece of anti-British villany, that none but the bitterest 
enemy of our blood and people could entertain such a project! 
It is to be met only with round and grape — to be answered by 
Shrapnel and Congreve ; to be discussed in hollgw squares, and 
refuted by battalions four deep ; to be put down by the ultima 
ratio of that armed Aristotle, the Duke of Wellington. 

O'Connell is released ; and released, I have no doubt, by the 
conscientious decision of the law lords. If he was unjustly (even 
from some technical defect) imprisoned, I rejoice in his liberation. 
England is, I believe, the only country in the world where such an 
event could have happened, and a wise Irishman (if there be a 
wise Irishman) should be slow in separating from a country whose 
spirit can produce, and whose institutions can admit, of such a 
result. Of his guilt no one doubts, but guilty men must be bung 
technically and according to established rules; upon a statutable 
gibbet, with parliament rope, and a legal hangman, sheriff, and 
chaplain on the scaffold, and a mob in the foreground. 

But, after all, I have no desire my dear Daniel should come to 
any harm, for I believe there is a great deal of virtue and excel- 
lent meaning in him, and I must now beg a few minutes' conversa- 
tion with him. " After nil, my dear Daniel, what is if you wan! ? 
— a separation of the two countries? — for what purpose ? — for 



366 ERIN GO BRAGH! 

your own aggrandizement? — for the gratification of your personal 
vanity? You don't know yourself; you are much too honourable 
and moral a man, and too clearsighted a person for such a business 
as this : the empire will be twisted out of your hands by a set of 
cut-throat villains, and you will die secretly by a poisoned potato, 
or be pistolled in the streets. You have too much sense, and 
taste, and openness, to endure for a session, the stupid and auda- 
cious wickedness and nonsense of your associates. If you want 
fame, you must be insatiable ! Who is so much known in all Eu- 
rope, or so much admired by honest men for the real good you had 
done to your country, before this insane cry of Repeal ? And 
don't imagine you can intimidate this government ; whatever be 
their faults or merits, you may take my word for it, you will not 
intimidate them. They will prosecute you again, and put down 
your Clontarf meetings, and they will be quite right in doing so. 
They may make concessions, and I think they will ; but they would 
fall into utter contempt, if they allowed themselves to be terrified 
into a dissolution of the Union. They know full well that the En- 
glish nation are unanimous and resolute upon this point, and that 
they would prefer war to a Repeal. And now, dear Daniel, sit 
down quietly at Derrynane, and tell me, when the bodily frame is 
refreshed with the wine of Bordeaux, whether all this is worth 
while. What is the object of all government ? The object of all 
government is roast mutton, potatoes, claret, a stout constable, an 
honest justice, a clear highway, a free chapel. What trash to be 
bawling in the streets about the Green Isle, the Isle of the Ocean ! 
the bold anthem of Erin go Bragh ! A far better anthem would 
be Erin go bread and cheese, Erin go cabins that will keep out 
the rain, Erin go pantaloons without holes in them ! What folly 
to be making eternal declamations about governing yourselves ! If 
laws are good and well administered, is it worth while to rush into 
war and rebellion, in order that no better laws may be made in 
another place ? Are you an Eton boy, who has just come out, full 
of Plutarch's Lives, and considering in every case how Epaminon- 
das or Philopoemen would have acted, or are you our own dear 
Daniel, drilled in all the business and bustle of life ? I am with 
you heart and soul in my detestation of all injustice done to Ire- 
land. Your priests shall be fed and paid, the liberties of your 
Church be scrupulously guarded, and in civil affairs the most even 



PAYING THE CLERGY. 367 

justice be preserved between Catholic and Protestant. Thus far 
I am a thorough rebel as well as yourself; but when you come to 
the perilous nonsense of Repeal, in common with every honest man 
who has five grains of common sense, I take my leave." 

It is entertaining enough, that although the Irish are beginning 
to be so clamorous about making their own laws, that the wisest 
and the best statutes in the books have been made since their union 
with England. All Catholic disabilities have been abolished ; a 
good police has been established all over the kingdom; public 
courts of petty sessions have been instituted ; free trade between 
Great Britain and Ireland has been completely carried into effect ; 
lord lieutenants are placed in every county ; church-rates are taken 
off Catholic shoulders ; the county grand jury rooms are flung open 
to the public ; county surveyors are of great service ; a noble pro- 
vision is made for educating the people. I never saw a man who 
had returned to Ireland after four or five years' absence, who did 
not say how much it had improved, and how fast it was improving ; 
and this is the country which is to be Erin-go-bragh'd by this shal- 
low, vain, and irritable people into bloodshed and rebellion ! 

The first thing to be done is to pay the priests, and after a little 
time they will take the money. One man wants to repair his cot- 
tage ; another wants a buggy ; a third cannot shut his eyes to the 
dilapidations of a cassock. The draft is payable at sight in Dub- 
lin, or by agents in the next market town dependent upon the com- 
mission in Dublin. The housekeeper of the holy man is importu- 
nate for money, and if it is not procured by drawing for the salary, 
it must be extorted by curses and comminations from the ragged 
worshippers, slowly, sorrowfully, and sadly. There will be some 
opposition at first, but the facility of getting the salary without (he 
violence they are now forced to use, and the difficulties to which 
they are exposed in procuring the payment of those emoluments 
to which they are fairly entitled, will, in the end, overcome all ob- 
stacles* And if it does not succeed, what harm is done by the 

* Smith had a conversation with Dr. Doyle, at a time he was anxious to 
learn as far as possiblewhat effect the measures lie was proposing would have 
upon the Catholics. Be proposed thai Government should pay the Catholic 

priests. " They would not take it," said \)v. Doyle. " Do you mean to say, 
that if every priest in Ireland received to-morrow morning " Government letter 
with a hundred pounds, first <>r urtbb of their year's income, they would re- 



368 TENANTLESS PEWS. 

attempt ? It evinces on the part of this country the strongest dis- 
position to do what is just, and to apply the best remedy to the 
greatest evil ; but the very attempt would do good, and would be 
felt in the great Catholic insurrection, come when it will. All re- 
bellions and disaffections are general and terrible in proportion as 
one party has suffered, and the other inflicted ; any great measure 
of conciliation, proposed in the spirit of kindness, is remembered, 
and renders war less terrible, and opens avenues to peace. 

The Roman Catholic priest could not refuse to draw his salary 
from the state without incurring the indignation of his flock. 
" Why are you to come upon us for all this money, when you can 
ride over to Sligo or Belfast, and draw a draft upon governing i it 
for the amount ?" It is not easy to give a satisfactory answer to 
this, to a shrewd man who is starving to death. 

Of course, in talking of a government payment to the Catholic 
priest, I mean it should be done with the utmost fairness and good 
faith ; no attempt to gain patronage, or to make use of the pope as 
a stalking-horse for playing tricks. Leave the patronage exactly 
as you find it ; and take the greatest possible care that the Catho- 
lic clergy have no reason to suspect you in this particular ; do it 
like a gentleman, without shuffling and prevarication, or leave it 
alone altogether. 

The most important step in improvement which mankind ever 
made, was the secession from the see of Rome, and the establish- 
ment of the Protestant religion ; but though I have the sincerest 
admiration of the Protestant faith I have no admiration of Prot- 
estant hassocks on which there are no knees, nor of seats on 
which there is no superincumbent Protestant pressure, nor of 
whole acres of tenantless Protestant pews, in which no human 
being of the ^.Ye hundred sects of Christians is ever seen. I have 
no passion for sacred emptiness, or pious vacuity. The emoluments 
of those livings in which there are few or no Protestants, ought, 
after the death of the present incumbents, to be appropriated in 
part to the uses of the predominant religion, or some arrangements 
made for superseding such utterly useless ministers immediately, 
securing to them the emoluments they possess. 

Can any honest man say, that in parishes (as is the case fre- 

fuse it?" " Ah, Mr. Smith," said Dr. Doyle, "you've such away of putting 
things V — Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 276. 



TITHES. 869 

quently in Ireland) containing 3000 or 4000 Catholics and 40 or 
50 Protestants, there is the smallest chance of the majority being 
converted ? Are not the Catholics (except in the North of Ire- 
land, where the great mass are Presbyterians) gaining everywhere 
on the Protestants ? The tithes were originally possessed by the 
Catholic Church of Ireland. Not one shilling of them is now 
devoted to that purpose. An immense majority of the common 
people are Catholics ; they see a church richly supported by the 
spoils of their own church establishments, in whose tenets not one 
tenth part of the people believe. Is it possible to believe this can 
endure? — that a light, irritable, priest-ridden people will not, 
under such circumstances, always remain at the very eve of re- 
bellion always ready to explode when the finger of Daniel touches 
the hair trigger? — for Daniel, be it said, though he hates shedding 
blood in small quantities, has no objection to provoking kindred 
nations to war. He very properly objects to killing or being 
killed by Lord Alvanly ; but would urge on ten thousand Pats in 
civil combat against ten thousand Bulls. His objections are to 
small homicides ; and his vow that he has registered in Heaven is 
only against retail destruction, and murder by piecemeal. He 
does not like to teaze Satan by driblets ; but to earn eternal tor- 
ments by persuading eight million Irish, and twelve million Britons 
no longer to buy and sell oats and salt meat, but to butcher each 
other in God's name to extermination. And what if Daniel dies, 
of what use his death ? Does Daniel make the occasion, or does 
the occasion make Daniel? — Daniels are made by the bigotry 
and insolence of England to Ireland; and till the monstrous 
abuses of the Protestant Church in that country are rectified, there 
will always be Daniels, and they will always come out of their 
dens more powerful and more popular than when you casl them in. 
I do not mean by this unjustly and cowardly to run down 
O'Connell. lie has been of eminent service to his country in the 
question of Catholic Emancipation, and I am by no means satis- 
fied that with the gratification of canity there are not mingled 
genuine feelings of patriotism and a deep sense of the injustice 
done to his country. His first success, however, flung him oil' his 
guard; and perhaps he trusted too much in the timidity of the 
present government, who are by no means composed of irresolute 
or weak men. 

L6 



370 JOINVILLE. 

If I thought Ireland quite safe, I should still object to injustice. 
I could never endure in silence that the Catholic Church of Ire- 
land should be left in its present state ; but I am afraid France 
and England can now afford to fight ; and having saved a little 
money, they will, of course, spend it in fighting. That puppy of 
the waves, young Joinville, will steam over in a high-pressure 
fleet! — and then comes an immense twenty per cent, income-tax 
war, a universal insurrection in Ireland, and a crisis of misery 
and distress, in which life will hardly be worth having. The 
struggle may end in our favour, but it may not; and the object of 
political wisdom is to avoid these struggles. I want to see jolly 
Roman Catholic priests secure of their income without any motive 
for sedition or turbulence. I want to see Patricks at the loom ; 
cotton and silk factories springing up in the bogs ; Ireland a rich, 
happy, quiet country! — scribbling, carding, cleaning, and making 
calico, as if mankind had only a few days more allotted to them 
for making clothes, and were ever after to remain stark naked. 

Remember that between your impending and your past wars 
with Ireland there is this remarkable difference. You have given 
up your Protestant auxiliaries ; the Protestants enjoyed in for- 
mer disputes all the patronage of Ireland ; they fought not only 
from religious hatred, but to preserve their monopoly; — that mo- 
nopoly is gone ; you have been candid and just for thirty years, 
and have lost those friends whose swords were always ready 
to defend the partiality of the government and to stifle the cry of 
justice. The next war will not be between Catholic and Protest- 
ant, but between Ireland and England. 

I have some belief in Sir Robert. He is a man of great under- 
standing, and must see that this eternal O'Connelling will never 
do, that it is impossible it can last. We are in a transition state, 
and the Tories may be assured that the baronet will not go too 
fast. If Peel tells them that the thing must be done, they may 
be sure it is high time to do it; — they may retreat mournfully and 
sullenly before common justice and common sense, but retreat 
they must when Tarn worth gives the word — and in quick-step 
too, and without loss of time. 

And let me beg of my dear Ultras not to imagine that they 
survive for a single instant without Sir Robert — that they could 
form an ulra-tory administration. Is there a Chartist in Great 



DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENTS. 371 

Britain who would not, upon the first intimation of such an attempt, 
order a new suit of clothes, and call upon the baker and milkman 
for an extended credit ? Is there a political reasoner who would 
not come out of his hole with a new constitution ? Is there one 
ravenous rogue who would not be looking for his prey ? Is there 
one honest man of common sense who does not see that universal 
disaffection and civil war would follow from the blind fury, the 
childish prejudices and the deep ignorance of such a sect ? I 
have a high opinion of Sir Robert Peel, but he must summon up 
all his political courage, and do something next session for the pay- 
ment of the Roman Catholic priests. He must run some risk of 
shocking public opinion ; no greater risk, however, than he did in 
Catholic Emancipation. I am sure the Whigs would be true to 
him, and I think I observe that very many obtuse country gentle- 
men are alarmed by the state of Ireland, and the hostility of 
France and America. 

Give what you please to the Catholic priests, habits are not 
broken in a day. There must be time as well as justice, but in 
the end these things have their effect. A buggy, a house, some 
field near it, a decent income paid quarterly ; in the long run 
these are the cures of sedition and disaffection ; men don't quit the 
common business of life, and join bitter political parties, unless 
they have something justly to complain of. 

But where is the money — about £400,000 per annum — to 
come from ? Out of the pockets of the best of men, Mr. Thomas 
Grenville, out of the pockets of the bishops, of Sir Robert Inglis, 
and all other men who pay all other taxes ; and never will public 
money be so well and wisely employed ! 

It turns out that there is no law to prevent entering into diplo- 
matic engagements with the pope. The sooner we become ac- 
quainted with a gentleman who lias so much to say to eight mil- 
lions of our subjects, the better! Can anything be, so childish and 
absurd as a horror of communicating with the pope, and all the 
hobgoblins we have imagined of premunires and outlawries for 
this contraband trade in piety? Our ancestors (strange to say, 
wiser than ourselves), have left us to do as we please, and the sooner 
government do what \1\<>\ can do legally, the better. A thousand 
opportunities of doing gpod in Irish affairs have been lost, from 
pur having no avowed and dignified agent at the Court of Rome. 



872 ECCLESIASTICAL PAYMENTS. 

If it depended upon nie, I would send the Duke of Devonshire 
there to-morrow, with nine chaplains and several tons of Protes- 
tant theology. I have no love of popery, but the pope is at all 
events better than the idol of Juggernaut, whose chaplains I be- 
lieve we pay, and whose chariot I dare say is made in Long 
Acre. We pay £10,000 a year to our ambassador at Constanti- 
nople, and are startled with the idea of communicating diplomati- 
cally with Rome, deeming the Sultan a better Christian than the 
pope ! 

The mode of exacting clerical dues in Ireland is quite arbitrary 
and capricious. Uniformity is out of the question ; everything de- 
pends on the disposition and temper of the clergyman. There are 
salutary regulations put forth in each diocese respecting church 
dues and church discipline, and put forth by Episcopal and synod- 
ical authority. Specific sums are laid down for mass, marriage, 
and the administration of the Eucharist. These authorized pay- 
ments are moderate enough, but every priest, in spite of these 
rules, makes the most he can of his ministry, and the strangest dis- 
crepancy prevails, even in the same diocese, in the demands made 
upon the people. The priest and his flock are continually coming 
into collision on pecuniary matters. Twice a year the holy man 
collects confession money under the denomination of Christmas 
and Easter offerings. He selects, in every neighbourhood, one or 
two houses in which he holds stations of confession. Very disa- 
greeable scenes take place when additional money is demanded, or 
when additional time for payment is craved. The first thing done 
when there is a question of marrying a couple is, to make a bar- 
gain about the marriage money. The wary minister watches the 
palpitations, puts on a shilling for every sigh, and two-pence on 
every tear, and maddens the impetuosity of the young lovers up 
to a pound sterling. The remuneration prescribed by the diocesan 
statutes, is never thought of for a moment ; the priest makes as 
hard a bargain as he can, and the bed the poor peasants are to 
lie upon is sold, to make their concubinage lawful; — but every 
one present at the marriage is to contribute ;^ — the minister, after 
begging and entreating some time to little purpose, gets into a vio» 
lent rage, abuses and is abused; — and in this way is celebrated 
one of the sacraments of the Catholic Church! — The same scenes 
of altercation and abuse take place when gossip-money is refused 



IRISH CHURCH SUPPORT. 373 

at baptisms ; but the most painful scenes take place at extreme 
unction, a ceremony to which the common people in Ireland attach 
the utmost importance. " Pay me beforehand — this is not enough 
— I insist upon more, I know you can afford it, I insist upon a 
larger fee !" — and all this before the dying man, who feels he has 
not an hour to live ! and believes that salvation depends upon the 
timely application of this sacred grease. 

Other bad consequences arise out of the present system of Irish 
Church support. Many of the clergy are constantly endeavouring 
to overreach and undermine one another. Every man looks to his 
own private emolument, regardless of all covenants, expressed or 
implied. The curate does not make a fair return to the parish 
priest, nor the parish priest to the curate. There is a universal 
scramble! — every one gets what he can, and seems to think he 
would be almost justified in appropriating the whole to himself. 
And how can all this be otherwise ? How are the poor, wretched 
clergy to live, but by setting a high price on their theological la- 
bours, and using every incentive of fear and superstition to extort 
from six millions of beggars the little payments wanted for the 
bodies of the poor, and the support of life ! I maintain that it is 
shocking and wicked to leave the religious guides of six millions of 
people in such a state of destitution ! — to bestow no more thought 
upon them than upon the clergy of the Sandwich Islands ! If I 
were a member of the cabinet, and met my colleagues once a week, 
to eat birds and beasts, and to talk over the state of the world, I 
should begin upon Ireland before the soup was finished, go on 
through fish, turkey, and saddle of mutton, and never end till the 
last thimbleful of claret had passed down the throat of the incred- 
ulous Haddington : but there they sit, week alter week ; there they 
come, week after week; the Piccadilly Mars, the Scotch Neptune, 
Themis Lyndhurst, theTamworth baronet, dear Goody, and dearer 
Gladdy,* and think no more of paying the Catholic clergy, than a 
man of real fashion does of paying his tailor! And there is no 
excuse for this in fanaticism. There is only one man in the 
cabinet who objects from reasons purely fanatical, because the 
Pope is the Scarlet Lady, or the Seventh Vial, or the Little Horn. 
All the rest are entirely of opinion that it ought to he done — that. 
it is the one thing needful ; hut they are afraid of bishops and 
*Lord Goderich and the Right Hon. William Ewaii Gladstone 



874 LIVINGS. 

county meetings, newspapers, and pamphlets, and reviews ; all fair 
enough objects of apprehension, but they must be met, and en- 
countered, and put down. It is impossible that the subject can be 
much longer avoided, and that every year is to produce a deadly 
struggle with the people, and a long trial in time of peace with O' 
somebody, the patriot for the time being, or the general, perhaps, 
in time of a foreign war. 

If I were a bishop, living beautifully in a state of serene pleni- 
tude, I don't think I could endure the thought of so many honest, 
pious, and laborious clergymen of another faith, placed in such 
disgraceful circumstances ! I could not get into my carriage with 
jelly-springs, or see my two courses every day, without remem- 
bering the buggy and the bacon of some poor old Catholic bishop, 
ten times as laborious, and with much more, perhaps, of theological 
learning than myself, often distressed for a few pounds ! and bur- 
thened with duties utterly disproportioned to his age and strength. 
I think, if the extreme comfort of my own condition did not ex- 
tinguish all feeling for others, I should sharply commiserate such a 
church, and attempt with ardour and perseverance to apply the 
proper remedy. Now let us bring names and well-known scenes 
before the English reader, to give him a clearer notion of what 
passes in Catholic Ireland. The living of St. George's, Hanover 
Square, is a benefice of about £1500 per annum, and a good house. 
It is in the possession of Dr. Hodgson, who is also Dean of Car- 
lisle, worth, I believe, about £1500 more. A more comfortable 
existence can hardly be conceived. Dr. Hodgson is a very worthy, 
amiable man, and I am very glad he is as rich as he is : but sup- 
pose he had no revenues but what he got off his own bat — sup- 
pose that instead of tumbling through the skylight, as his income 
now does, it was procured by Catholic methods. The Doctor tells 
Mr. Thompson he will not marry him to Miss Simpson under 
£30 ; Thompson demurs, and endeavours to beat him down. The 
Doctor sees Miss Simpson ; finds her very pretty ; thinks Thomp- 
son hasty, and after a long and undignified negotiation, the Doctor 
gets his fee. Soon after this he receives a message from Place, 
the tailor, to come and anoint him with extreme unction. He re- 
pairs to the bed-side, and tells Mr. Place that he will not touch him 
under a suit of clothes, equal to £10 : the family resist, the alter- 
cation goes on before the perishing artisan, the price is reduced to 



A REAL BISHOP. 375 

£8, and Mr. Place is oile H. On the ensuing Sunday the child of 
Lord B. is to be christened ; the godfathers and godmothers will 
only give a sovereign each; the Doctor refuses to do it for the 
money, and the church is a scene of clamour and confusion. These 
are the scenes which, under similar circumstances, would take 
place here, for the congregation want the comforts of religion with- 
out fees, and will cheat the clergyman if they can ; and the clergy- 
man who means to live, must meet all these artifices with stern re- 
sistance. And this is the wretched state of the Irish Roman Cath- 
olic clergy ! — a miserable blot and stain on the English nation ! 
What a blessing to this country would a real bishop be ! A man 
who thought it the first duty of Christianity to allay the bad pas- 
sions of mankind, and to reconcile contending sects with each 
other. What peace and happiness such a man as the Bishop of 
London might have conferred on the empire, if, instead of chan- 
ging black dresses for white dresses, and administering to the frivo- 
lous disputes of foolish zealots, he had laboured to abate the hatred 
of Protestants for the Roman Catholics, and had dedicated his 
powerful understanding to promote religious peace in the two 
countries. Scarcely any bishop is sufficiently a man of the world 
to deal with fanatics. The way is not to reason with them, but to 
ask them to dinner. They are armed against logic and remon- 
strance, but they are puzzled in a labyrinth of wines, disarmed by 
facilities and concessions, introduced to a new world, come away 
thinking more of hot and cold, and dry and sweet, than of Newman, 
Keble, and Pusey. So mouldered away Hannibal's army at Capua ! 
So the primitive and perpendicular prig of Puseyism is softened 
into practical wisdom, and coaxed into common sense. Providence 
gives us generals, and admirals, and chancellors of the exchequer; 
but I never remember in my time a real bishop — a grave, elderly 
man, full of Greek, with sound news of the middle voice and pre- 
terperfect tense, gentle and kind to Ins poor clergy, of powerful 
and commanding eloquence ; in Parliament never to be put down 
when the great interests of mankind were concerned; leaning to 
the government when it was right, Leaning to the people when 
they were right; feeling that the Spirit of God had called him to 
thai high office, lie was called Tor no mean purpose, hut rather 
that, seeing clearly and acting boldly, and intending purely, he 
might confer lasting benefits upon mankind. 



876 STATE PAYMENT. 

We consider the Irish clergy as factious, and as encouraging the 
bad anti-British spirit of the people. How can it be otherwise? 
They live by the people ; they have nothing to live upon but the 
voluntary oblations of the people ; and they must fall into the same 
spirit as the people, or they would be starved to death. No mar- 
riage ; no mortuary masses ; no unctions to the priest who preached 
against O'Connell ! 

Give the clergy a maintenance separate from the will of the 
people, and you will then enable them to oppose the folly and 
madness of the people. The objection to the state provision does 
not really come from the clergy, but from the agitators and repeal- 
ers : these men see the immense advantage of carrying the clergy 
with them in their agitation, and of giving the sanction of religion 
to political hatred ; they know that the clergy, moving in the same 
direction with the people, have an immense influence over them ; 
and they are very wisely afraid, not only of losing this co-opera- 
ting power, but of seeing it, by a state provision, arrayed against 
them. I am fully convinced that a state payment to the Catholic 
clergy, by leaving to that laborious and useful body of men the 
exercise of their free judgment, would be the severest blow that 
Irish agitation could receive. 

For advancing these opinions, I have no doubt I shall be assailed 
by Sacerdos, Vindex, Latimer, Yates, Clericus, Aruspex, and be 
called atheist, deist, democrat, smuggler, poacher, highwayman, 
Unitarian, and Edinburgh Ee viewer ! Still, / am in the right — 
and what I say requires excuse for being trite and obvious, not for 
being mischievous and paradoxical. I write for three reasons ; 
first, because I really wish to do good ; secondly, because, if I 
don't write, I know nobody else will ; and thirdly, because it is the 
nature of the animal to write, and I cannot help it. Still, in look- 
ing back I see no reason to repent. What I have said ought to be 
done, generally has been done, but always twenty or thirty years 
too late ; done, not, of course, because I have said it, but because 
it was no longer possible to avoid doing it. Human beings cling 
to their delicious tyrannies, and to their exquisite nonsense, like a 
drunkard to his bottle, and go on till death stares them in the face. 
The monstrous state of the Catholic Church in Ireland will 
probably remain till some monstrous ruin threatens the very exist- 



INFLUENCE OVER THE PEOPLE. 377 

ence of the empire, and Lambeth and Fulham are cursed by the 
affrighted people. 

I have always compared the Protestant church in Ireland (and 
I believe my friend, Thomas Moore, stole the simile from me) to 
the institution of butchers' shops in all the villages of our Indian 
empire. " We will have a butcher's shop in every village, and 
you, Hindoos, shall pay for it. We know that many of you do 
not eat meat at all, and that the sight of beef-steaks is particularly 
offensive to you ; but still, a stray European may pass through 
your village, and want a steak or a chop : the shop shall be estab- 
lished ; and you shall pay for it." This is English legislation for 
Ireland ! ! There is no abuse like it in all Europe, in all Asia, in 
all the discovered parts of Africa, and in all we have heard of 
Timbuctoo ! It is an error that requires twenty thousand armed 
men for its protection in time of peace ; which costs more than a 
million a year ; and which, in the first French war, in spite of the 
puffing and panting of fighting steamers, will and must break out 
into desperate rebellion. 

It is commonly said, if the Roman Catholic priests are paid by 
the state, they will lose their influence over their flocks ; not their 
fair influence — not that influence which any wise and good man 
would wish to see in all religions — not the dependence of humble 
ignorance upon prudence and piety — only fellowship in faction, 
and fraternity in rebellion ; all that will be lost. A peep-of-day 
clergyman will no longer preach to a peep-of-day congregation — 
a Whiteboy vicar will no longer lead the psalm to Whiteboy 
vocalists ; but everything that is good and wholesome will remain. 
This, however, is not what the anti-British faction want; they 
want all the animation which piety can breathe into sedition, and 
all the fury which the priesthood can preach to diversity of faith : 
and this is what they mean by a clergy losing their influence over 
the people! The less a clergyman exacts of his people, the more 
his payments are kept out of sight, the less will be the friction 
with which he exercises the functions of his office. A poor 
Catholic may respect a priest the more who marries, baptizes, and 
anoints; but he respects him because he associates with his name 
and character the performance of sacred duties, not because he 
exacts heavy fees for doing so. Double ir<>> would he a very doubt- 
ful cure for skepticism; and though we have often seen the tenth 



378 EFFECT OF PAYMENT. 

of the earth's produce carted away for the benefit of the clergy- 
man, we do not remember any very lively marks of satisfaction 
and delight which it produced in the countenance of the decimated 
person. I am thoroughly convinced that state payments to the 
Catholic clergy would remove a thousand causes of hatred between 
the priest and his flock, and would be as favourable to the increase 
of his useful authority, as it would be fatal to his factious influence 
over the people. 



MACKINTOSH. 379 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 



LETTER ON THE CHARACTER OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.* 

My dear Sir : You ask for some of your late father's letters : 
I am sorry to say I have none to send you. Upon principle, I 
keep no letters except those on business. I have not a single 
letter from him, nor from any human being in my possession. 

The impression which the great talents and amiable qualities of 
your father made upon me, will remain as long as I remain. 
When I turn from living spectacles of stupidity, ignorance, and 

* It may assist the reader to recall the chief facts of Mackintosh's Life. He 
was born in the county of Inverness, Scotland, in 1765, He was educated at 
Aberdeen and in Edinburgh, where he took the degree of Doctor of medicine 
in 1787. He was called to the English bar in 1795; in 1803 received the 
honour of knighthood, on his appointment as Recorder of Bombay; dis- 
charged the duties of that office, in India, from 1804 till 1811 ; returned to 
Britain in 1812 ; in the following year was elected Member of Parliament for 
Nairnshire. In 1818, he became Professor of Law and General Politics, at 
Hayleybury College, an institution for the civil servants of the East India 
Company, and was, the same year, chosen Member of Parliament for Knares- 
borough, which lie continued to represent till his death. He was chosen 
Lord-Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1823, and made Privy-Coun- 
cillor by Canning, in 1827. He died in 18:52. J lis chief writings were his 
Vindicise Gallic®, a reply to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, 
at the age of twenty-six, in 1791 ; his Introductory Discourse on the Law of 
Nature and Nations; a Dissertation on the History and Progress of Ethical 
Philosophy, a History of the early English Reigns for Lanlnrr's Cabinet 
Cyclopaedia, a Life of Sir Thomas More, and various articles in the Edin- 
burgh Review. His Life, Correspondence, and -Journals, were published by 
his son, Robert James Mackintosh, to which work this Letter, by Sydney 
Smith, was an important contribution. 



380 HIS CONVERSATION. 

malice, and wish to think better of the world — I remember my 
great and benevolent friend Mackintosh. 

The first points of character which everybody noticed in him 
were the total absence of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitable - 
ness. He could not hate — he did not know how to set about it. 
The gall-bladder was omitted in his composition, and if he could 
have been persuaded into any scheme of revenging himself upon 
an enemy, I am sure (unless he had been narrowly watched) it 
would have ended in proclaiming the good qualities, and promoting 
the interests of his adversary. Truth had so much more power 
over him than anger, that (whatever might be the provocation) he 
could not misrepresent, nor exaggerate. In questions of passion 
and party, he stated facts as they were, and reasoned fairly upon 
them, placing his happiness and pride in equitable discrimination. 
Yery fond of talking, he heard patiently, and, not averse to intel- 
lectual display, did not forget that others might have the same 
inclination as himself. 

Till subdued by age and illness, his conversation was more bril- 
liant and instructive than that of any human being I ever had the 
good fortune to be acquainted with. His memory (vast and pro- 
digious as it was) he so managed as to make it a source of pleas- 
ure and instruction, rather than that dreadful engine of colloquial 
oppression into which it is sometimes erected. He remembered 
things, words, thoughts, dates, and everything that was wanted. 
His language was beautiful, and might have gone from the fireside 
to the press ; but though his ideas were always clothed in beautiful 
language, the clothes were sometimes too big for the body, and 
common thoughts were dressed in better and larger apparel than 
they deserved. He certainly had this fault, but it was not one of 
frequent commission.* 

* There is a bit of humour in Smith's Memoirs on this text. Writing to 
Lord Holland, in 1826, he says : "It struck me last night, as I was lying in 
bed, that Mackintosh, if he were to write on pepper, would thus describe it : 

" ' Pepper may philosophically be described as a dusty and highly-pul- 
verized seed of an Oriental fruit ; an article rather of condiment than diet, 
which, dispersed lightly over the surface of food, with no other rule than the 
caprice of the consumer, communicates pleasure, rather than affords nutrition ; 
and, by adding a tropical flavour to the gross and succulent viands of the 
North, approximates the different regions of the earth, explains the objects 
of commerce, and justifies the industry of man/ " 



HABIT OF EULOGY. 381 

He had a method of putting things so mildly and interroga- 
tively, that he always procured the readiest reception for his opinions. 
Addicted to reasoning in the company of able men, he had two 
valuable habits, which are rarely met with in great reasoners — he 
never broke in upon his opponent, and always avoided strong and 
vehement assertions. His reasoning commonly carried conviction, 
for he was cautious in his positions, accurate in his deductions, 
aimed only at truth. The ingenious side was commonly taken 
by some one else ; the interests of truth were protected by Mack- 
intosh. 

His good-nature and candour betrayed him into a morbid habit 
of eulogizing everybody — a habit which destroyed the value of 
commendations, that might have been to the young (if more spar- 
ingly distributed) a reward of virtue and a motive to exertion.* 

* Smith hit off this trait of his friend in a parody. The following is from 
Lady Holland's Memoir : — 

" What a loss you had in not knowing Mackintosh ! how was it ? . . . Yes, 
his manner was cold ; his shake of the hand came under the genus ' mortmain ;' 
but his heart was overflowing with benevolence. I like that simile I made on 
him in my letter, of ' a great ship cutting its cable ;' it is fine, and it well 
described Mackintosh. His chief foible was indiscriminate praise. I amused 
myself the other day/ said he, laughing, ' in writing a termination of a 
speech for him ; would you like to hear it ? I will read it to you : — 

"'It is impossible to conclude these observations without expressing the 
obligations I am under to a person in a much more humble scene of life — I 
mean, sir, the hackney-coachman by whom I have been driven to this meet- 
ing. To pass safely through the streets of a crowded metropolis must re- 
quire, on the part of the driver, no common assemblage of qualities. He 
must have caution without timidity, activity without precipitation, and courage 
without rashness ; lie must have a clear perception of his object, and a 
dexterous use of his means. I can safely say of the individual in question, 
that, for a moderate reward, lie has displayed unwearied skill ; and to 
him I shall never forget that I owe unfractured integrity of limb, exemption 
from pain, and perhaps prolongation of existence. 

" ' Nor can I pass over the encouraging cheerfulness with which I was re- 
ceived by the waiter, nor the useful blaze of light communicated by the link- 
boys, as I descended from the carriage. It was with no common pleasure that T 
remarked in these men, not the mercenary bustle of venal service, but the 
genuine effusions of untutored benevolence; not the rapacity of Subordinate 
agency, but the alacrity of humble friendship. What may not be said of a 
country where all the little accidents of life bring forth the hidden qualities 
of the heart — where her vehicles are driven, Tier sheets illumined, and her 
bells answered, by men teeming with all the refinements of civilized life? 



382 HUMOUR AND WIT. 

Occasionally lie took fits of an opposite nature ; and I have seen 
him abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the most 
successful ridicule. He certainly had a good deal of humour; 
and I remember, amongst many other examples of it, that he kept 
us for two or three hours in a roar of laughter, at a dinner-party 
at his own house, playing upon the simplicity of a Scotch cousin, 
who had mistaken me for my gallant synonym, the hero of Acre. 
I never saw a more perfect comedy, nor heard ridicule so long 
and so well sustained.* Sir James had not only humour, but he 
had wit also ; at least, new and sudden relations of ideas flashed 
across his mind in reasoning, and produced the same effect as wit, 
and would have been called wit, if a sense of their utility and im- 

" ' I can not conclude, sir, without thanking you for the very clear and 
distinct manner in which you have announced the proposition on which we 
are to vote. It is but common justice to add that public assemblies rarely 
witness articulation so perfect, language so select, and a manner so eminently 
remarkable for everything that is kind, impartial, and just/ " 

* This was in his early days at London, about the year 1807. Lady 
Holland (Memoir, p. 87) tells the story: — 

"It was on occasion of one of these suppers that Sir James Mackintosh . 
happened to bring with him a raw Scotch cousin, an ensign in a Highland 
regiment. On hearing the name of his host he suddenly turned round, and, 
nudging Sir James, said in an audible whisper, ' Is that the great Sir Sud- 
ney ^ 'Yes, yes/ said Sir James, much amused; and giving my father 
the hint, on the instant he assumed the military character, performed the 
part of the hero of Acre to perfection, fought all his battles over again, and 
showed how he had charged the Turks, to the infinite delight of the young 
Scotchman, who was quite enchanted* with the kindness and condescension 
of ' the great Sir Sudney/ as he called him, and to the absolute torture of 
the other guests, who were bursting with suppressed laughter at the scene 
before them. At last, after an evening of the most inimitable acting on the 
part both of my father and Sir James, nothing would serve the young High- 
lander but setting off, at twelve o'clock at night, to fetch the piper of his re- 
giment to pipe to ' the great Sir Sudney/ who said he had never heard the 
bagpipes, upon which the whole party broke up and dispersed instantly, for Sir 
James said his Scotch cousin would infallibly cut his throat if he discovered 
his mistake. A few days afterward, when Sir James Mackintosh and his 
Scotch cousin were walking in the streets, they met my father with my mother 
on his arm. He introduced her as his wife, upon which the Scotch cousin , 
said in a low voice to Sir James, and looking at my mother, ' I did na ken 
the great Sir Sudney was married.' ' Why, no/ said Sir James, a little em- 
barrassed and winking at him, ' not ex-act-ly married — only an Egyptian 
slave he brought over with him ; Fatima — you know — you understand/ 
My mother was long known in the little circle as Fatima." 



RED TAPE. 883 

portance had not often overpowered the admiration of novelty, 
and entitled them to the higher name of wisdom. Then the great 
thoughts and fine sayings of the great men of all ages were inti- 
mately present to his recollection, and came out dazzling and de- 
lighting in his conversation. Justness of thinking was a strong 
feature in his understanding ; he had a head in which nonsense 
and error could hardly vegetate : it was a soil utterly unfit for them. 
If his display in conversation had been only in maintaining splen- 
did paradoxes, he would soon have wearied those he lived with ; 
but no man could live long intimately with your father without 
finding that he was gaining upon doubt, correcting error, enlar- 
ging the boundaries, and strengthening the foundations of truth. 
It was worth while to listen to a master, whom not himself, but 
nature had appointed to the office, and who taught what it was 
not easy to forget, by methods which it was not easy to resist.* 
Curran, the master of the rolls, said to Mr. Grattan, "You 
would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you would buy 
a few yards of red tape, and tie up your bills and papers." This 
was the fault or misfortune of your excellent father ; he never 
knew the use of red tape, and was utterly unfit for the common 
business of life.f That a guinea represented a quantity of shil- 

* In 1801 Smith wrote to Jeffrey : " Nothing has pleased me more in Lon- 
don than the conversation of Mackintosh. I never saw so theoretical a head 
which contained so much practical understanding. He has lived much among 
various men, with great observation, and has always tried his profound moral 
speculations by the experience of life. He has not contracted in the world a 
lazy contempt for theorists nor in the closet a peevish impatience of that 
grossness and corruptibility of mankind, which are ever marring the schemes 
of secluded benevolence. He does not wish for the best in politics or morals, 
but for the best which can be attained ; and what that is he seems to know 
well. Now what I object to Scotch philosophers in general is, that they 
reason upon man as they would upon a divinity; they pursue truth without 
caring if it be useful truth. They are more fond of disputing on mind and 
matter than on anything which can have a reference to the real world, inhabit- 
ed by real men, women, and children; a philosopher that descends to the 
present state of things is debased in their estimation. Look among our 
friends in Edinburgh, and see if there be not some truth in this. I do 
not speak of great prominent literary personages, but of the mass of 
reflecting men in Scotland." 

t Smith, writing to the Countess Grey of Mackintosh's visit to Foston 
in 1823, says of his guest: "Mackintosh had seventy volumes in his 



384 STUDIES. 

lings, and that it would barter for a quantity of cloth, he was well 
aware ; but the accurate number of the baser coin, or the just 
measurement of the manufactured article, to which he was enti- 
tled for his gold, he could never learn, and it was impossible 
to teach him. Hence his life was often an example of the 
ancient and melancholy struggle of genius, with the difficulties of 
existence. 

I have often heard Sir James Mackintosh say of himself, that 
he was born to be the professor of a university. Happy, and for 
ages celebrated, would have been the university, which had so 
possessed him, but in this view he was unjust to himself. Still, 
however, his style of speaking in Parliament was certainly more 
academic than forensic ; it was not sufficiently short and quick for 
a busy and impatient assembly. He often spoke over the heads 
of his hearers — was too much in advance of feeling for their sym- 
pathies, and of reasoning for their comprehension. He began too 
much at the beginning, and went too much to the right and left of 
the question, making rather a lecture or a dissertation than a 
speech. His voice was bad and nasal ; and though nobody was 
in reality more sincere, he seemed not only not to feel, but hardly 
to think what he was saying. 

Your father had very little science, and no great knowledge of 
physics. His notions of his early pursuit — the study of medicine 
— were imperfect and antiquated, and he was but an indifferent 
classical scholar, for the Greek language has never crossed the 
Tweed in any great force. In history the whole stream of time 
was open before him ; he had looked into every moral and meta- 
physical question from Plato to Paley, and had waded through 
morasses of international law, where the step of no living man 
could follow him. Political economy is of modern invention ; I 
am old enough to recollect when every judge on the bench (Lord 
Eldon and Sergeant Runnington excepted), in their charges to 
the grand juries, attributed the then high prices of corn to the 
scandalous combination of farmers. Sir James knew what is 
commonly agreed upon by political economists, without taking 
much pleasure in the science, and with a disposition to blame the 
very speculative and metaphysical disquisitions into which it has 

carriage ! None of the glasses would c 
he left his hat behind him at our house/' 



INTEGRITY. 385 

wandered, but with a full conviction also (which many able 
men of his standing are without) of the immense importance of 
the science to the welfare of society. 

I think (though, perhaps, some of his friends may not agree 
with me in this opinion) that he was an acute judge of character, 
and of the good as well as evil in character. He was, in truth, 
with the appearance of distraction and of one occupied with other 
things, a very minute observer of human nature ; and I have seen 
him analyze, to the very springs of the heart, men who had not 
the most distant suspicion of the sharpness of his vision, nor a 
belief that he could read anything but books. 

Sufficient justice has not been done to his political integrity. 
He was not rich, was from the northern part of the island, pos- 
sessed great facility of temper, and had therefore every excuse 
for political lubricity, which that vice (more common in those days 
than I hope it will ever be again) could possibly require. Invited 
by every party, upon his arrival from India, he remained stead- 
fast to his old friends the whigs, whose admission to office, or en- 
joyment of political power, would at that period have been con- 
sidered as the most visionary of all human speculations ; yet, 
during his lifetime, everybody seemed more ready to have for- 
given the tergiversation of which he was not guilty, than to 
admire the actual firmness he had displayed. With all this he 
never made the slightest efforts to advance his interests with his 
political friends, never mentioned his sacrifices nor his services, 
expressed no resentment at neglect, and was therefore pushed 
into such situations as fall to the lot of the feeble and delicate in a 
crowd. 

A high merit in Sir James Mackintosh was his real and unaf- 
fected philanthropy. He did not make the improvement of the 
great mass of mankind an engine of popularity, and a stepping- 
stone to power, but he had a genuine love of human happiness. 
Whatever might assuage the angry passions, and arrange the, con- 
flicting interests of nations ; whatever could promote peace, in- 
crease knowledge, extend commerce, diminish crime, and en- 
courage industry; whatever could exalt human character, and 
could enlarge human understanding ; struck at once at the heart 
of your father, and roused all his faculties. I have seen him in 
a moment when this spirit came upon him — like a great ship of 

17 



386 HOSPITALITY. 

war — cut his cable, and spread his enormous canvass and launch 
into a wide sea of reasoning eloquence. 

But though easily warmed by great schemes of benevolence and 
human improvement, his manner was cold to individuals. There 
was an apparent want of heartiness and cordiality. It seemed as 
if he had more affection for the species than for the ingredients of 
which it was composed. He was in reality very hospitable, and 
so fond of company, that he was hardly happy out of it ; but he 
did not receive his friends with that honest joy which warms more 
than dinner or wine.* 

This is the good and evil of your father which comes upper- 
most. If he had been arrogant and grasping ; if he had been 
faithless and false ; if he had always been eager to strangle infant 
genius in its cradle ; always ready to betray and to blacken those 
with whom he sat at meat ; he would have passed many men, 
who, in the course of his long life, have passed him ; but, without 
selling his soul for pottage, if he only had had a little more pru- 
dence for the promotion of his interests, and more of angry 
passions for the punishment of those detractors who envied his 
fame and presumed upon his sweetness ; if he had been more 
aware of his powers, and of that space which nature intended him 
to occupy : he would have acted a great part in life, and remained 
a character in history. As it is, he has left, in many of the best 
men in England, and of the continent, the deepest admiration of 
his talents, his wisdom, his knowledge, and his benevolence. 

I remain, my dear sir, very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

* In reference to this passage a Quarterly reviewer remarked : " Mr. 
Sydney Smith is remarkable for the quality he describes as wanting in 
Mackintosh ; and to have passed a day at Combe Florey, the paragon of 
parsonages, is an epoch in the life of any man/' (Quar. Eev., Feb., 1836.) 



FRANCIS HORNER. 387 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FRANCIS HORNER. 



LETTER FROM SYDNEY SMITH TO LEONARD HORNER. 

My dear Sir : You desire me to commit to paper my recol- 
lections of your brother, Francis Horner. I think that the many 
years which have elapsed since his death, have not at all impaired 
my memory of his virtues, at the same time that they have afforded 
me more ample means of comparing him with other important hu- 
man beings with whom I have become acquainted since that 
period. 

I first made the acquaintance of Francis Horner at Edinburgh, 
where he was among the most conspicuous young men in that en- 
ergetic and infragrant city. My desire to know him proceeded 
first of all from being cautioned against him by some excellent and 
feeble people to whom I had brought letters of introduction, and 
who represented him to me as a person of violent political opinions. 
I interpreted this to mean a person who thought for himself — 
who had firmness enough to take his own line in life, and who 
loved truth better than he loved Dundas, at that time the tyrant 
of Scotland. I found my interpretation to be just, and from thence 
till the period of his death, we lived in constant society, and friend- 
ship with each other. 

There was something very remarkable in bis countenance — the 
commandments were written on his face 4 , and I have often told him 
there was not a crime he might not commit with impunity, as no 
judge or jury who saw him, would give the smallest degree of 
credit to any evidence against him : there was in his look a calm 
settled love of all that was honourable and good — an air of wis- 



388 PERSONAL TRAITS. 

dom and of sweetness ; you saw at once that he was a great man, 
whom nature had intended for a leader of human beings ; you 
ranged yourself willingly under his banners, and cheerfully submit- 
ted to his sway. 

He had an intense love of knowledge ; he wasted very little of the 
portion of life conceded to him, and was always improving himself, 
not in the most foolish of all schemes of education, in making long 
and short verses and scanning Greek choruses, but in the mascu- 
line pursuits of the philosophy of legislation, of political economy, 
of the constitutional history of the country, and of the history and 
changes of Ancient and Modern Europe. He had read so much, 
and so well, that he was a contemporary of all men, and a citizen 
of all states. 

I never saw any person who took such a lively interest in the 
daily happiness of his friends. If you were unwell, if there was 
a sick child in the nursery, if any death happened in your family, 
he never forgot you for an instant ! You always found there was 
a man with a good heart who was never far from you. 

He loved truth so much, that he never could bear any jesting 
upon important subjects. I remember one evening the late Lord 
Dudley and myself pretended to justify the conduct of the govern- 
ment in stealing the Danish fleet; we carried on the argument 
with some wickedness against our graver friend; he could not 
stand it, but bolted indignantly out of the room ; we flung up the 
sash, and, with loud peals of laughter, professed ourselves decided 
Scandinavians ; we offered him not only the ships, but all the shot, 
powder, cordage, and even the biscuit, if he would come back : but 
nothing could turn him ; he went home ; and it took us a fortnight 
of serious behaviour before we were forgiven. 

Francis Horner was a very modest person, which men of great 
understanding seldom are. It was his habit to confirm his opin- 
ion by the opinions of others ; and often to form them from the 
same source.* 

^Writing to Jeffrey, in 1805, Smith says: "Horner is a very happy 
man ; his worth and talents are acknowledged by the world at a more early 
period than those of any independent and upright man I ever remember. He 
verifies an observation I have often made, that the world do not dislike origi- 
nality, liberality, and independence, so much as the insulting arrogance with 
which they are almost always accompanied. Now, Horner pleases the best 
judges, and does not offend the worst." 



SIMPLICITY OF CHARACTER. 389 

His success in the House of Commons was decided and imme- 
diate, and went on increasing to the last day of his life. Though 
put into Parliament by some of the great borough lords, every one 
saw that he represented his own real opinions : without hereditary 
wealth, and known as a writer in the Edinburgh Review, his inde- 
pendence was never questioned : his integrity, sincerity, and mod- 
eration, were acknowledged by all sides, and respected even by 
those impudent assassins who live only to discourage honesty and 
traduce virtue. The House of Commons as a near relative of 
mine once observed,* has more good taste than any man in it. 
Horner, from his manners, his ability, and his integrity, became a 
general favourite with the House ; they suspended for him their 
habitual dislike of lawyers, of political adventurers, and of young 
men of conseederable taalents from the North. 

Your brother was wholly without pretensions or affectation. I 
have lived a long time in Scotland, and have seen very few af- 
fected Scotchmen ; of those few he certainly was not one. In the 
ordinary course of life, he never bestowed a thought upon the effect 
he was producing ; he trusted to his own good nature, and good 
intentions, and left the rest to chance. 

Having known him well before he had acquired a great London 
reputation, I never observed that his fame produced the slightest 
alteration in his deportment ; he was as affable to me, and to all 
his old friends, as when we were debating metaphysics in a garret 
in Edinburgh. I don't think it was in the power of ermine or 
mace, or seals, or lawn, or lace, or of any of those emblems and or- 
naments with which power loves to decorate itself, to have destroyed 
the simplicity of his character. I believe it would have defied all 
the corrupting appellations of human vanity : Severe, Honourable, 
Right Honourable, Sacred, Reverend, Right Reverend, Lord High, 
Earl, Marquis, Lord Mayor, Your Grace, Your Honour, and 
every other vocable which folly has invented, and idolatry cherished, 
would all have been lavished on him in vain. 

The character of his understanding was the exercise of vigorous 
reasoning, in pursuit of important and difficult truth. He had no 
wit; nor did he condescend to that inferior variety of this electric 
talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under 
the name of Wut, is so infinitely distressing to persons of good 
'* His brother Robert Smith. 



390 VIRTUES. 

taste. He had no very ardent and poetical imagination, but he 
had that innate force, which, 

" Quemvis perferre laborem 



Suasit, et induxit noctes vigilare serenas 
Quserentem dictis quibus, et quo carmine demum, 
Clara suae possit prsepandere lumina menti."^ 

Your late excellent father, though a very well-informed person, 
was not what would be called a literary man, and you will readily 
concede to me that none of his family would pretend to rival your 
brother in point of talents. I never saw more constant and high- 
principled attention to parents than in his instance ; more habitual 
and respectful deference to their opinions and wishes. I never 
saw brothers and sisters, over whom he might have assumed a 
family sovereignty, treated with more cheerful and endearing 
equality. I mention these things, because men who do good 
things are so much more valuable than those who say wise ones ; 
because the order of human excellence is so often inverted, and 
great talents considered as an excuse for the absence of obscure 
virtues. 

Francis Horner was always very guarded in his political opin- 
ions ; guarded, I mean, against the excesses into which so many 
young men of talents were betrayed by their admiration of the 
French revolution. He was an English Whig, and no more than an 
English Whig. He mourned sincerely over the crimes and madness 
of France, and never, for a single moment, surrendered his under- 
standing to the novelty and nonsense which infested the world at 
that strange era of human affairs. 

I remember the death of many eminent Englishmen, but I can 
safely say, I never remember an impression so general as that ex- 

* Part of the address of Lucretius to Memmius in the opening of his great 
philosophical poem De Rerum Natura, where the author is warmed by friend- 
ship to overcome the difficulties of presenting Greek themes in Latin meas- 
ures ; in Creech's loose version : — 

" Yet for respect of you with great delight 
I meet these dangers, and I wake all night, 
Labouring fit numbers and fit words to find, 
To make things plain and to instruct your mind, 
And teach her to direct her curious eye 
Into coy nature's greatest privacy." 
Smith has adapted the passage by some slight changes. 



OBITUARY. 391 

cited by the death of Francis Horner.* The public looked upon 
him as a powerful and safe man, who was labouring, not for him- 
self or his party, but for them. They were convinced of his talents, 
they confided in his moderation, and they were sure of his motives ; 
he had improved so quickly and so much, that his early death was 
looked upon as the destruction of a great statesman, who had done 
but a small part of the good which might be expected from him, 
who would infallibly have risen to the highest offices, and as infal- 
libly have filled them to the public good. Then, as he had never 
lost a friend, and made so few enemies, there was no friction, no 
drawback ; public feeling had its free course ; the image of a good 
and great man was broadly before the world, unsullied by any 
breath of hatred ; there was nothing but pure sorrow ! Youth 
destroyed before its time, great talents and wisdom hurried to the 
grave, a kind and good man, who might have lived for the glory 
of England, torn from us in the flower of his life ! — but all this is 
gone and past, and, as Galileo said of his lost sight, " It has pleased 
God it should be so, and it must please me also." 

Ever truly, yours, Sydney Smith. 

Combe Floret, 26th August, 1842. 

* Horner died at Pisa, in February, 1817, in the thirty-ninth year of his 
age. He was bom in Edinburgh, in 1778, and was the playmate, in child- 
hood, of Henry Brougham. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he 
pursued his studies in England ; wrote for the first number of the Edinburgh 
Review, practised law in Scotland, and was called to the English bar in 1807. 
He was best known by his career in the House of Commons, from 1806 to 
his death. He was at home on the currency, the corn laws, and other labo- 
rious questions of government and trade. His Memoir and Correspondence, 
edited by his brother, Leonard Horner, to which Sydney Smith's letter was 
a contribution, are a noble monument to his memory. Lady Holland (.Me- 
moir, p. 154) supplies these additional memoranda of Sydney Smith's affec- 
tion and respect for his friend: "My father speaks of his feelings on this 
loss, in the following letter to Mr. Horner's younger brother: 'Foston, 
March, 23, 1817. I remember no misfortune of my life which I have felt BO 
deeply as the loss of your brother. I never saw any man who combined 
together so much talent, worth, and warmth of heart ; and we lived together 
in habits of great friendship and affection for many years. J shall always re- 
tain a most lively and affectionate remembrance of him to the day of my 
death.' Again, in a letter to Mr. John Wniflhaw (March 26, 1817), he 
says: ' I have received a melancholy fragment from poor Horner — a letter 
half-finished at his death. I cannot Bay how much I was affected by ii : in- 
deed, on looking back on my own mind, I never remember to have felt an 
event more deeply than his death.' " 



392 LETTERS. 



PASSAGES PROM LETTERS. 



VISITS OXFORD CLIQUEISM. 

{To Jeffrey, 1803.) I have been spending three or four days 
in Oxford, in a contested election ; Horner went down with me, 
and was much entertained. I was so delighted with Oxford, after 
my long absence, that I almost resolved to pass the long vacation 
there, with my family, amidst the shades of the trees and the 
silence of the monasteries. Horner is to come down too ; will you 
join us ? We would settle the fate of nations, and believe our- 
selves (as all three or four men who live together do) the sole 
repositories of knowledge, liberality, and acuteness. 



LIFE OF A PARENT. 

{To Jeffrey, London, 1803 or 1804.) Mrs. Sydney is pretty 
well, and slowly recovering from her shock,* of which your kind- 
ness and your experience enabled you to ascertain the violence. 
Children are horribly insecure : the life of a parent is the life of 
a gambler. 



WELL -INF ORMED WOMEN. 

{To Jeffrey, London, 1804.) is here, and will cer- 
tainly settle in Scotland next winter. She is, for a woman, well- 
informed and very liberal : neither is she at all disagreeable ; but 
the information of a very plain woman is so inconsiderable, that I 
agree with you in setting no very great store by it. I am no great 

^ The loss of her infant son. 



JEFFREY. 393 

physiognomist, nor have 1 much confidence in a science which pre- 
tends to discover the inside from the out ; but where I have seen 
fine eyes, a beautiful complexion, grace and symmetry in women, 
I have generally thought them amazingly well-informed and ex- 
tremely philosophical. In contrary instances, seldom or never. 



JEFFREY S ANALYSIS. 

(To Jeffrey, London, 1804.) I certainly, my dear Jeffrey, in 
conjunction with the Knight of the Shaggy Eyebrows,* do protest 
against your increasing and unprofitable skepticism. I exhort 
you to restrain the violent tendency of your nature for analysis, 
and to cultivate synthetical propensities. What is virtue ? What's 
the use of truth ? What's the use of honour ? What's a guinea, 
but ad — d yellow circle? The whole effort of your mind is to 
destroy. Because others build slightly and eagerly, you employ 
yourself in kicking down their houses, and contract a sort of 
aversion for the more honourable, useful, and difficult task of build- 
ing well yourself. 



TRIUMPH OF CIVILIZED LIFE. 

(To Jeffrey, London, 1806.) Tell Murray that I was much 
struck with the politeness of Miss Markham the day after he went. 
In carving a partridge, I splashed her with gravy from head to 
foot ; and though I saw three distinct brown rills of animal juice 
trickling down her cheek, she had the complaisance to swear that 
not a drop had reached her. Such circumstances are the triumphs 
of civilized life. 



HINTS TO JEFFREY. 

(To Jeffrey, London, 180G.) I must be candid with you, my 
dear Jeffrey, and tell you that I do not like your article on the 
Scotch Courts; and with me think many persons whose opinions 
I am sure you would respect. I subscribe to none of your reason- 
ings, hardly, about juries ; and the manner in which you have 
done it is far from happy. You have made, too, some egregious 

* Francis Horner. 
17* 



394 MAXIMS. 

mistakes about English law, pointed out to me by one of the first 
lawyers of the King's Bench. I like to tell you these things, 
because you never do so well as when you are humbled and fright- 
ened, and if you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, 
you would charm everybody ; but remember my joke against you 
about the moon: "D — n the solar system! bad light — planets 
too distant — pestered with comets — feeble contrivance; could 
make a better with great ease." 



FATING IN TURBOT. 

{To Jeffrey ', London, 1808.) I regret sincerely that so many 
years have elapsed since we met. I hope, if you possibly can, you 
will contrive to come to town this spring : we will keep open house 
for you ; you shall not be molested with large parties. You have 
earned a very high reputation here, and you may eat it out in 
turbot, at great people's houses, if you please ; though I well know 
you would prefer the quiet society of your old friends. 



MAXIMS. 



{To Lady Holland, about 1809.) I mean to make some max- 
ims, like Rochefoucauld, and to preserve them. My first is this : 
After having lived half their lives respectably, many men get tired 
of honesty, and many women of propriety. 

A SIGN OF THE STATE IN DIFFICULTY. 

{To Earl Grey, 1809.) There is no man who thinks better 
of what you and your coadjutors can and will do ; but I can not 
help looking upon it as a most melancholy proof of the miser- 
able state of this country, when men of integrity and ability are 
employed. If it were possible to have gone on without them, I 
am sure they would never have been thought of. 



KOGEPvS. 

{To Lady Holland, 1815.) Many thanks for your letter. I 
think you very fortunate in having "Rogers at Rome. Show me a 



FORMING AN OPINION. ' 395 

more kind and friendly man ; secondly, one, from good manners, 
knowledge, fun, taste, and observation, irore agreeable; thirdly, a 
man of more strict political integrity, and of better character in 
private life. If I were to choose any Englishman in foreign parts 
whom I should wish to blunder upon, it should be Rogers. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

(To Lady Holland, Boston, 1818.) I am sorry we cannot 
agree about Walter Scott. My test of a book written to amuse, is 
amusement ; but I am rather rash, and ought not to say / am 
amused, before I have inquired whether Sharp or Mackintosh is 
so. Whishaw's* plan is the best : he gives no opinion for the first 
week, but confines himself to chuckling and elevating his chin ; in 
the meantime, he drives diligently about the first critical stations, 
breakfasts in Mark Lane, hears from Hertford College, and by 
Saturday night is as bold as a lion, and as decisive as a court of 
justice. 



A DINNER-PARTY AT HOLLAND HOUSE. 

(To the Countess Grey.) We had a large party at dinner here 
yesterday : Dr. Wollaston, the great philosopher, who did not say 
one word; William Lamb; Sir Henry Bunbury; Palmella, the. 
Portuguese ambassador ; Lord Aberdeen, the Exquisite ; Sir 
William Grant, a rake and disorderly man of the town, recently 
Master of the Rolls ; Whishaw, a man of fashion ; Frere ; Hal lam, 
of the " Middle Ages ;" and myself. In spite of such heterogeneous 
materials, we had a pleasant party. f 

* John Whishaw, the political and social friend of Mackintosh, and the Ro- 
millys. Writing to Earl Grey, at the period of the Reform Bill, Smith sats, 
u Cultivate Whishaw ; he is one of the most sensible men in England." And 
previously, to John Allen, in 182G : "We have seen a good deal of old 
Whishaw this summer; he is as pleasant as he is wise and honest. He lias 
character enough to make him well receive. I If he were dull, and wit enough 
to make him popular if he were a rogue." 

t This ironical passage has given rise to a curious correspondence between 
$he representatives of the family of one of the persons mentioned and Mrs. 
Austin, the editor of the Letters. A nephew of Sir William Grant, William 
Charles Grant, complains to the lady of the slander to the memory of his rel- 



396 AMERICA. 

TRAVELLERS IN AMERICA. 

{To the Earl Grey, Foston, Nov. 30, 1818.) Dear Lord 
Grey : I will send Lady Grey the news from London when I get 
there. I am sure she is too wise a woman not to be fond of gos- 
siping ; I am fond of it, and have some talents for it. 

I recommend you to read Hall, Palmer, Fearon, and Bradbury's 
Travels in America, particularly Fearon. Those four books may, 
with ease, be read through between breakfast and dinner. There 
is nothing so curious and interesting as the rapidity with which 
the Americans are spreading themselves over that immense con- 
tinent. 

It is quite contrary to all probability that America should re- 
main in an integral state. They aim at extending from sea to sea, 
and have already made settlements on the Pacific. There can be 
no community of interest between people placed under such very 
different circumstances : the maritime Americans, and those who 
communicate with Europe by the Mississippi are at this moment, 
as far as interest can divide men, two separate people. There 
does not appear to be in America at this moment one man of any 
considerable talents. They are a very sensible people ; and seem 
to have conducted their affairs, upon the whole, very well. Birk- 
beck's second book is not so good as his first. He deceives him- 
self — says he wishes to deceive himself — and is not candid. If a 
man chooses to say, "I will live up to my neck in mud, fight 
bears, swim rivers, and combat backwoodsmen, that I may ulti- 

ative (one of the most unexceptionable men in England in private and public 
life), asks for its suppression, and a public denial commensurate with the in- 
jury, adding that he supposes Sydney Smith " to have been imposed upon by 
some malicious person." Mrs. Austin gravely promises to omit the offending 
words from any future edition. The London Athenaeum (April 26, 1856), 
which publishes the correspondence, as " The Sequel to a Jest," compares 
the original passage with Pope's ironical sketch (Epilogue to the Satires), 
when he has invoked the spirit of the detractor Arnall to " aid me while I 
lie" :— 

" Cobham's a coward, Polwarth is a slave, 

And Lyttleton a dark designing knave, 

St. John has ever been a wealthy fool — 

But let me add, Sir Robert's mighty dull, 

Has never made a friend in private life, 

And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife" 



TO HIS SON AT SCHOOL. 397 

mately gain an independence for myself and children/' this is 
plain and intelligible ; but, by Birkbeck's account, it is much like 
settling at Putney or Kew ; only the people are more liberal and 
enlightened. Their economy and their cheap government will do 
some good in this country by way of example. Their allowance 
to Monroe is £5,000 per annum ; and he finds his own victuals, 
fire, and candles ! 

Ever yours, dear Lord Grey, most sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 



TO HIS SON DOUGLAS. 

( To Douglas Smith, Esq., King's Scholar at Westminster College, 
Foston Rectory, 1819.) My dear Douglas : Concerning this Mr. 

, I would not have you put any trust in him, for he is not 

trustworthy ; but so live with him as if one day or other he were 
to be your enemy. With such a character as his, this is a neces- 
sary precaution. 

In the time you can give to English reading you should con- 
sider what it is most needful to have, what it is most shameful to 
want — shirts and stockings, before frills and collars. Such is the 
history of your own country, to be studied in Hume, then in Ra- 
pin's History of England, with Tindal's Continuation. Hume 
takes you to the end of James the Second, Rapin and Tindal will 
carry you to the end of Anne. Then, Coxe's " Life of Sir Robert 
"Walpole," and the " Duke of Marlborough ;" and these read with 
attention to dates and geography. Then, the history of the other 
three or four enlightened nations in Europe. For the English 
poets, I will let you off at present with Milton, Dryden, Pope, and 
Shakespeare; and remember, always, in books, keep the best 
company. Don't read a line of Ovid till you have mastered 
Virgil; nor a line of Thomson till you have exhausted Popej nor 
of Massinger, till you are familiar with Shakespeare. 

I am glad you liked your box and its contents. Think of us as 
we think of you; and send us Hie most acceptable of all presents 
— the information that you are improving in all particulars. 

The greatest of all human mysteries are the Westmiuster holi- 
days. If you can get a peep behind the curtain, pray let us know 
immediately the day of your coming home. 



398 OLD FRIENDS. 

We have had about three or four ounces of rain here, that is 
all. I heard of your being wet through in London, and envied 
you very much. The whole of this parish is pulverized from 
long and excessive drought. Our whole property depends upon 
the tranquillity of the winds : if it blow before it rains, we shall 
all be up in the air in the shape of dust, and shall be transparished 
we know not where. 

God bless you, my dear boy ! I hope we shall soon meet at 
Lydiard. Your affectionate father, 

Sydney Smith. 



REVISITS EDINBURGH. 

(To Lady Mary Bennett, Dec. 1821.) In the first place I 
went to Lord Grey's, and stayed with them three or four days ; 
from thence I went to Edinburgh, where 1 had not been for ten 
years. I found a noble passage into the town, and new since my 
time ; two beautiful English chapels, two of the handsomest 
library-rooms in Great Britain, and a wonderful increase of shoes 
and stockings, streets and houses. When I lived there, very few 
maids had shoes and stockings, but plodded about the house with 
feet as big as a family Bible, and legs as large as portmanteaus* 
I stayed with Jeffrey. My time was spent with the Whig leaders 
of the Scotch bar, a set of very honest, clever men, each posses- 
sing thirty-two different sorts of wine. My old friends were glad 
to see me; some had turned Methodists — some had lost their 
teeth — some had grown very rich — some very fat — some were 
dying — and, alas! alas! many were dead; but the world is a 
coarse enough place, so I talked away, comforted some, praised 
others, kissed some old ladies, and passed a very riotous week. 



AN ARGILLACEOUS IMMORTALITY. 

(To John Murray, Foston, 1821.) How little you understand 
young Wedgewood ! If he appears to love waltzing, it is only to 
catch fresh figures for cream-jugs. Depend upon it, he will have 
Jeffrey and you upon some of his vessels, and you will enjoy an 
argillaceous immortality, 



war. 399 

ANTI-WAR. 

(To the Countess Grey, Foston, York, Feb. 19, 1823.) For 
God's sake, do not drag me into another war ! I am worn down, 
and worn out, with crusading and defending Europe, and protect- 
ing mankind ; I must think a little of myself. I am sorry for the 
Spaniards — I am sorry for the Greeks — I deplore the fate of the 
Jews ; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the 
most detestable tyranny; Bagdad is oppressed — I do not like the 
present state of the Delta — Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to 
fight for all these people ? The world is bursting with sin and 
sorrow. Am I to be champion of the Decalogue, and to be 
eternally raising fleets and armies to make all men good and 
happy ? We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid the 
consequence will be, that we shall cut each other's throats. No 
war, dear Lady Grey! — no eloquence; but apathy, selfishness, 
common sense, arithmetic ! I beseech you, secure Lord Grey's 
sword and pistols, as the housekeeper did Don Quixote's armour. 
If there is another war, life will not be worth having. I will go 
to war with the King of Denmark if he is impertinent to you, or 
does any injury to Ho wick ; but for no other cause. 

" May the vengeance of Heaven" overtake all the Legitimates 
of Verona ! but, in the present state of rent and taxes, they must 
be left to the vengeance of Heaven ! I allow fighting in such a 
cause to be a luxury ; but the business of a prudent, sensible man, 
is to guard against luxury. 



AN ORATORIO. 

(To Lady Holland, 1823.) Nothing can be more disgusting 
than an Oratorio. How absurd, to see iive hundred people fiddling 
like madmen about the Israelites in the Red Sea! Lord Morpeth 
pretends to say he was pleased, but I see a great change in him 
since the music-meeting. Pray tell Luttrell he did wrong not to 
come to the music. It tired me to death; it would have pleased 
him. He is a melodious person, and much given to sacred music. 

In his fits of absence I have heard him hum the Hundredth 
Psalm ! (Old Version.) % 



400 TEMPERANCE. 

JEFFREY. 

{To Lady Holland, 1827.) Jeffrey has been here with his 
adjectives, who always travel with him. His throat is giving way ; 
so much wine goes down it, so many million words leap over it, 
how can it rest ? Pray make him a judge ; he is a truly great 
man, and is very heedless of his own interests. I lectured him 
on his romantic folly of wishing his friends to be preferred before 
himself, and succeeded, I think, in making him a little more selfish. 



IRRELIGION AND IMPIETY. 

{To Messrs , Booksellers, Foston, 1827.) I hate 

the insolence, persecution, and intolerance, which so often pass un- 
der the name of religion, and (as you know) I have fought against 
them ; but I have an unaffected horror of irreligion and impiety ; 
and every principle of suspicion and fear would be excited in me 
by a man who professed himself an infidel. 



TEMPERANCE. 

{To Lady Holland, 1828.) Many thanks for your kind anxiety 
respecting my health. I not only was never better, but never 
half so well : indeed I find I have been very ill all my life, with- 
out knowing it. Let me state some of the goods arising from 
abstaining from all fermented liquors. First, sweet sleep ; having 
never known what sweet sleep was, I sleep like a baby or a 
ploughboy. If I wake, no needless terrors, no black visions of 
life, but pleasing hopes and pleasing recollections : Holland House, 
past and to come ! If I dream, it is not of lions and tigers, but 
of Easter dues and tithes. Secondly, I can take longer walks, 
and make greater exertions, without fatigue. My understanding 
is improved, and I comprehend Political Economy. I see better 
without wine and spectacles than when I used both. Only one 
evil ensues from it : I am in such extravagant spirits that I must 
lose blood, or look out for some one who will bore and depress me. 
Pray leave off wine : the stomach quite at rest ; no heartburn, no 
pain, no distension. 



MALTHUS. 401 

TO THOMAS MOORE.* 

(London^ 1831.) My dear Moore : By the beard of the prelate 
of Canterbury, by the cassock of the prelate of York, by the 
breakfasts of Rogers, by Luttrell's love of side-dishes, I swear 
that I had rather hear you sing than any person I ever heard in 
my life, male or female. For what is your singing but beautiful 
poetry floating in fine music, and guided by exquisite feeling? 
Call me Dissenter, say that my cassock is ill put on, that I know 
not the delicacies of decimation, and confound the greater and the 
smaller tithes ; but do not think that I am insensible to your 
music. The truth is, that I took a solemn oath to Mrs. Beauclerk, 
to be there by ten, and set off, to prevent perjury, at eleven ; but 
was seized with a violent pain in the stomach by the way, and 
went to bed. Yours ever, my dear Moore, very sincerely. 

Sydney Smith. 



malthus. 

{To Lady Holland, Combe Florey, 1831.) Philosopher Mal- 
thus came here last week. I got an agreeable party for him of 
unmarried people. There was only one lady who had had a child ; 
but he is a good-natured man, and, if there are no appearances of 
approaching fertility, is civil to every lady. Malthus is a real 
moral philosopher, and I would almost consent to speak as inarticu- 
lately, if I could think and act as wisely. 



PREFERMENT. AT COURT. 

{To the Countess of Morley, Bristol, 1831.) Dear Lady Mor- 
ley: I have taken possession of my preferment. The house is in 
Amen-corner — an awkward name on a card, and an awkward 
annunciation to the coachman on leaving any fashionable mansion. 
I find, too (sweet discovery !) that I give a dinner every Sunday, 
for three months in the year, to six clergymen and six singing- 

* In answer to a note of Moore expressing the regret, that ""he had gone 
away so soon from Ellis's the other night, as I had improved (i. e., in my 

singing) afterward, and he was one of the few I always wished to do my best 
for." — Moore's Diary, June 15, 1831. 



402 AT COURT. 

men, at one o'clock. Do me the favour to drop in as Mrs. Mor- 
ley. I did the duty at St. Paul's ; the organ and music were ex- 
cellent. 

I went to Court, and, horrible to relate! with strings to my 
shoes instead of buckles — not from Jacobinism, but ignorance. 
I saw two or three Tory lords looking at me with dismay, was 
informed by the Clerk of the Closet of my sin, and gathering my 
sacerdotal petticoats about me (like a lady conscious of thick 
ankles), I escaped further observation. My residence is in Febru- 
ary, March, and July. 



EDWARD IRVING. 

(To the Countess of Morley.) Noble countenance, expressing 
quite sufficient when at rest, too much when in activity. Middling 
voice, provincial accent, occasional bad taste ; language often very 
happy, with flights of mere eloquence ; not the vehicle of reason- 
ing, or of profound remark. Yery difficult, when the sermon was 
over, to know what it was about; and the whole effect rather 
fatiguing and tiresome. 



READING IN AGE. 

(To Lady Holland, Combe Florey, 1831.) Read Cicero's 
" Letters to Atticus," translated by the Abbe Mongon, with excel- 
lent notes. I sit in my beautiful study, looking upon a thousand 
flowers, and read agreeable books, in order to keep up arguments 
with Lord Holland and Allen. I thank God heartily for my com- 
fortable situation in my old age — above my deserts, and beyond 
my former hopes. 



TO EARL GREY IN OFFICE. 

(1831.) Pray keep well, and do your best, with a gay and care- 
less heart. What is it all, but the scratching of pismires upon a 
heap of earth ? Rogues are careless and gay, why not honest 
men ? Think of the Bill in the morning, and take your claret in 
the evening, totally forgetting the Bill. You have done admi- 
rably up to this time. 



ANTI-CHOLERA. 403 

EPIGRAM ON PROFESSOR AIRY, 

(To John Murray, Combe Florey,' 1832.) We are living here 
with windows all open, and eating our own ripe grapes grown in 
the open air ; but, in revenge, there is no man within twenty miles 
who knows anything of history, or angles, or of the mind. I send 
Mrs. Murray my epigram on Professor Airy, , of Cambridge, the 
great astronomer and mathematician, and his beautiful wife : — 

Airy alone has gained that double prize 
Which forced musicians to divide the £rown ; 

His works have raised a mortal to the skies, 
His marriage vows have drawn an angel down. 



ANTI-CHOLERA. 

(To the Countess Grey, Combe Florey, 1832.) The cholera 
will have killed by the end of the year about one person in 
every thousand. Therefore it is a thousand to one (supposing 
the cholera to travel at the same rate) that any person does 
not die of the cholera in any one year. This calculation is for the 
mass ; but if you are prudent, temperate, and rich, your chance is 
at least five times as good that you do not die of the cholera — in 
other words, five thousand to one that you do not die of cholera in 
a year ; it is not far from two millions to one that you do not die 
any one day from cholera. It is only seven hundred and thirty 
thousand to one that your house is not burnt down any one day. 
Therefore it is nearly three times as likely that your house should 
be burnt down any one day, as that you should die of cholera ; or, 
it is as probable that your house should be burnt down three times 
in any one year, as that you should die of cholera. 



THE IIAY-IKVHR. 

(To Dr. Holland, Combe Florey, June, 1835.) I am suffer- 
ing from my old complaint, the. hay-fever (as it is culled). My 
fear is, perishing by deliquescence; I melt away in nasal and 
lachrymal profluvia. My remedies arc warm pediluvium, cathar- 
tics, topical application of a watery solution of opium to eyes, ears, 
and the interior of the nostrils. The membrane is so irritable, 



404 SYMPATHY AND FAHRENHEIT. 

that light, dust, contradiction, an absurd remark, the sight of a Dis- 
senter — anything, sets me sneezing; and if I begin sneezing at 
twelve, I don't leave off till two o'clock, and am heard distinctly hi 
Taunton, when the wind sets that way — a distance of six miles. 
Turn your mind to this little curse. If consumption is too power- 
ful for physicians, at least they should not suffer themselves to be 
outwitted by such little upstart disorders as the hay-fever. 



OLD AGE TO BE PASSED IN THE CITY. 

(To Mrs. , Paris, 1835.) I suspect the fifth act of life 

should be in great cities ; it is there, in the long death of old age, 
that a man most forgets himself and his infirmities ; receives the 
greatest consolation from the attentions of friends, and the greatest 
diversion from external circumstances. 



AFFECTION AND THE THERMOMETER. 

(To Mrs. , July, 1836.) Very high and very low tem- 
perature extinguishes all human sympathy and relations. It is 
impossible to feel affection beyond 78°, or below 20° of Fahrenheit ; 
human nature is too solid or too liquid beyond these limits. Man 
only lives to shiver or to perspire. God send that the glass may 
fall, and restore me to my regard for you, which in the temperate 
zone is invariable. 



HIS PORTRAIT. 

( To Lady Ashhiirton. With a Print.) Dear Lady Ashburton : 
Miss Mildmay told me yesterday that you had been looking about 
for a print of the Rev. Sydney Smith. Here he is — pray accept 
him. I said to the artist, " Whatever you do, preserve the ortho- 
dox look." 



DIGESTION AND THE VIRTUES. 



(To Arthur Kinglake, Combe Florey, 1837.) I am much 
obliged by the present of your brother's book.* I am convinced 

* Eothen. 



CITY AND COUNTRY. 405 

digestion is the great secret of life ; and that character, talents, vh> 
tues, and qualities, are powerfully affected by beef, mutton, pie-crust, 
and rich soups. I have often thought I could feed or starve men 
into many virtues and vices, and affect them more powerfully with 
my instruments of cookery than Timotheus could do formerly with 
his lyre. 



TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

(To Miss G. Harcourt, London, 1838.) The summer and 
the country, dear Georgiana, have no charms for me. I look for- 
ward anxiously to the return of bad weather, coal fires, and good 
society, in a crowded city. I have no relish for the country ; it is 
a kind of healthy grave. I am afraid you are not exempt from the 
delusions of flowers, green turf, and birds ; they all afford slight 
gratification, but not worth an hour of rational conversation : and 
rational conversation in sufficient quantities is only to be had from 
the congregation of a million of people in one spot. God bless 
you ! 



A PARODY. 

(To Lady Davy, London, 1840.) Do you remember that 
passage in the " Paradise Lost," which is considered so beautiful ? 

" As one who, long in populous cities pent, 
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, 
Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe 
Among the pleasant villages and farms 
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight : 
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine, 
Or flowers : each rural sight, cadi rural sound. 
If chance with aymph-like step fair virgin pass, 
What pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more, 

She most,; and in her look sums all delight." 
I think this simile very unjust to London, and I have amended 

the passage. I vi-<\i\ if overto Lady Charlotte Lindsay and the 
Miss Berrys. The question was, whom the gentleman should see 

first when he arrived in London ; and after variolic proposals, it 
was at last unanimously agreed it must be you ; so it stands 
thus : — 



406 WEBSTER. 

" As one who, long in rural hamlets pent, 
Where squires and parsons deep potations make, 
With lengthened tale of fox or timid hare, 
Or antlered stag, sore vexed by hound and horn, 
Forth issuing on a winter's morn, to reach 
In chaise or coach the London Babylon 
Eemote, from each thing met conceives delight ; 
Or cab, or car, or evening muffin-bell, 
Or lamps : each city sight, each city sound. 
If chance with nymph-like step the Davy pass, 
What pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more. 
She most ; and in her look sums all delight." 

I tried the verses with names of other ladies, but the universal 
opinion was, in the conclave of your friends, that it must be you ; 
and this told, now tell me, dear Lady Davy, how do you do? 
Shall we ever see you again ? We are dying very fast here ; 
come and take another look at us. Mrs. Sydney is in the country 
in rather bad health ; I am (gout and asthma excepted) very well. 



DANIEL WEBSTEE. 

{To Mrs. Grote, London, 1839.J The " Great Western" turns 
out very well — grand, simple, cold, slow, wise, and good. 

[When Mr. Webster, says Lady Holland (Mem. p. 252), was 
Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the United States, my father 
heard it reported from America that an accidental mistake he had 
made, in introducing Mr. Webster, on his coming to this country 
some time before (I believe to Lord Brougham), under the name 
of Mr. Clay, was intentional, and by way of joke. Annoyed that 
so much impertinence and bad taste should be imputed to him, he 
wrote a few lines of explanation to Mr. Webster, to which he re- 
ceived the following answer.] 

" Washington, 1841. My Dear Sir: Though exceedingly de- 
lighted to hear from you, I am yet much pained by the contents of 
your note ; not so much, however, as I should be, were I not able 
to give a peremptory denial to the whole report. I never men- 
tioned the incident to which you refer, as a joke of yours — far 
from it ; nor did I mention it as anything extraordinary. 

" My clear, good friend, do not think me such a as to quote 

or refer to any incident falling out between you and me to your 



DICKENS. 407 

disadvantage. The pleasure of your acquaintance is one of the 
jewels I brought home with me. I had read of you, and read you 
for thirty years. I was delighted to meet you, and to have all I 
know of you refreshed and brightened by the charms of your con- 
versation. If any son of asserts that either through ill-will, 

or love of vulgar gossip, I tell such things of you as you suppose, 
I pray you, let him be knocked down instanter. And be assured, 
my dear sir, I never spoke of you in my life but with gratitude, 
respect, and attachment. " D. Webster." 

To this Smith wrote in reply : — 

" Many thanks, my dear sir, for your obliging letter. I think 
better of myself, because you think well of me. If, in the imbe- 
cility of old age, I forgot your name for a moment, the history of 
America will hereafter be more tenacious in its recollections — 
tenacious because you are using your eloquent wisdom to restrain 
the high spirit of your countrymen within the limits of justice, and 
are securing to two kindred nations, who ought to admire and ben- 
efit each other, the blessings of peace. How can great talent be 
applied to nobler ends, and what existence can be more truly 
splendid ? Ever sincerely yours, 

"Sydney Smith." 



CHARLES DICKENS.* 

(To Sir George Philips, about 1838.) — Nickleby is very good. 
I stood out against Mr. Dickens as long as I could, but he has 
conquered me. 

(To Charles Dickens, June 11, 1839.) My dear Sir: No- 
body more, and more justly, talked of than yourself. 

The Mis3 Berrys, now at Richmond, live only to become 
acquainted with you, and have commissioned me to request you 
to dine with them Friday, the 29th, or Monday, July 1st, to meet 
a Canon of St. Paul's, the Rector of Combe Florey, and the Vicar 
of Halberton — all equally well known to von; to say nothing of 

* Dickens has paid a genial tribute to the memory of Sydney Smith, in a 
paper in his happiest vein of irony, in Household Words, Sept. 8, L855. Ilo 
treats the biography as a myth, a story of impossible virtue, a satire on the 
whig party who left such fabulous merits so long unrewarded. 



408 CHUZZLEWIT. 

other and better people. The Miss Berrys and Lady Charlotte 
Lindsay have not the smallest objection to be put into a Number, 
but, on the contrary, would be proud of the distinction ; and Lady 
Charlotte, in particular, you may marry to Newman Noggs. 
Pray come ; it is as much as my place is worth to send them a 
refusal. 

{May 14, 1842.) My dear Dickens : I accept your obliging 
invitation conditionally. If I am invited by any man of greater 
genius than yourself, or one by whose works I have been more 
completely interested, I will repudiate you, and dine. with the more 
splendid phenomenon of the two. 

{To Charles Dickens, Esq., January 6, 1843.) My dear Sir: 
You have been so used to these sort of impertinences, that I be- 
lieve you will excuse me for saying how very much I am pleased 
with the first number of your new work. Pecksniff and his 
daughters, and Pinch, are admirable — quite first-rate painting, 
such as no one but yourself can execute. 

I did not like your genealogy of the Chuzzlewits, and I must 
wait a little to see how Martin turns out ; I am impatient for the next 
number. 

Pray come and see me next summer ; and believe me ever 
yours. 

P. S. — Chuffey is admirable. I never read a finer piece of 
writing ; it is deeply pathetic and affecting. Your last number 
is excellent. Don't give yourself the trouble to answer my im- 
pertinent eulogies, only excuse them. Ever yours. 

{To Charles Dickens, Esq., 56 Green Street, July 1, 1843.) 
Dear Dickens : Excellent ! nothing can be better ! You must settle 
it with the Americans as you can, but I have nothing to do with 
that. I have only to certify that the number is full of wit, humour, 
and power of description. 

I am slowy recovering from an attack of gout in the knee, and 
am very sorry to have missed you. 

{To Charles Dickens, 56 Green Street, Feb. 21, 1844.) Dear 
Dickens : Many thanks for the " Christmas Carol, " which I shall 



GOUT. 409 

immediately proceed upon, in preference to six American pam- 
phlets I found upon my arrival, all promising immediate payment ! 
Yours ever. 



A BREAKFAST. 

( To Mrs. , Green Street, April 8, 1840.) Dear Mrs. : 

I wish I may be able to come on Monday, but I doubt. Will 
you come to a philosophical breakfast on Saturday — ten o'clock 
precisely ? Nothing taken for granted ! Everything (except the 
Thirty-nine Articles) called in question — real philosophers ! 



INVITATION TO THE OPERA. 

( To Mrs. Meynell, Green Street, June, 1840.) Thy servant is 
threescore-and-ten years old ; can he hear the sound of singing 
men and singing women? A Canon at the Opera ! Where have 
you lived ? In what habitations of the heathen? I thank you, 
shuddering ; and am ever your unseducible friend. 



GOUT. 



{To the Countess of Carlisle, 1840.) What a very singular 
disease gout is! It seems as if the stomach fell down into the 
feet. The smallest deviation from right diet is immediately pun- 
ished by limping and lameness, and the innocent ankle and blame- 
less instep are tortured for the vices of the nobler organs. The 
stomach having found this easy way of getting rid of inconvenien- 
ces, becomes cruelly despotic, and punishes for the least offences. 
A plum, a glass of Champagne, excess in joy, excess in grid' — 
any crime, however small, is sufficient for redness, swelling, spasms, 
and large shoes. 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 

{To the Countess Grey, 1841.) I hear Morpeth is going to 

America, a resolution I think very wise, and which I should 
decidedly carry into execution myself, if I were not going to 

Heaven. 

is 



410 ST. ANTHONY, 

BOMBARDING THE ASIATICS. 

{To the Countess Grey, Oct 1841.) The news from China 
gives me the greatest pleasure. I am for bombarding all the 
exclusive Asiatics, who shut up the earth, and will not let me 
walk civilly and quietly through it, doing no harm, and paying 
for all I want. 



ST. ANTHONY. 

( To Lady Ashhurton, 1841.) You have very naturally, my dear 
Lady Ashburton, referred to me for some information respecting 
St. Anthony. The principal anecdotes related of him are, that 
he was rather careless of his diet ; and that, instead of confining 
himself to boiled mutton and a little wine and water, he ate of 
side-dishes, and drank two glasses of sherry, and refused to lead a 
life of great care and circumspection, such as his constitution re- 
quired. The consequence was, that his friends were often alarmed 
at his health; and the medical men of Jerusalem and Jericho were 
in constant requisition, taking exorbitant fees, and doing him little 
good. 



CORRESPONDENCE SUSAN HOPLEY PUSEYITE. 

{To Mrs. Crowe* Comoe Florey, Jan. 31, 1841.) Dear Mrs. 
Crowe : I quite agree with you as to the horrors of correspond- 
ence. Correspondences are like small-clothes before the invention 
of suspenders ; it is impossible to keep them up. 

That episode of Julia [in Susan Hopley] is much too long. Your 
incidents are remarkable for their improbability. A boy goes on 
board a frigate in the middle of the night, and penetrates to the cap- 
tain's cabin without being seen or challenged. Susan climbs into a 
two-pair-of-stairs window to rescue two grenadiers. A gentleman 
about to be murdered is saved by rescuing a woman about 
to be drowned, and so on. The language is easy, the dialogue 
natural. There is a great deal of humour ; the plot is too compli- 
cated. The best part of the book is Mr. and Mrs. Ayton ; but 

*Mrs. Catherine Crowe, author of the Adventures of Susan Hopley, Lilly 
Dawson, The Night- Side of Nature, and other works. 



PUSEYISM. 411 

the highest and most important praise of the novel is that you 
are carried on eagerly, and that it excites and sustains a great 
interest in the event, and therefore I think it a very good novel 
and will recommend it. 

It is in vain that I study the subject of the Scotch Church. I 
have heard it ten times over from Murray, and twenty times from 
Jeffrey, and I have not the smallest conception what it is about. 
I know it has something to do with oat-meal, but beyond that I am 
in utter darkness. Everybody here is turning Puseyite. Having 
worn out my black gown, I preach in my surplice ; this is all the 
change I have made, or mean to make. 

There seems to be in your letter a deep-rooted love of the 
amusements of the world. Instead of the ever-gay Murray and 
the never-silent Jeffrey, why do you not cultivate the Scotch 
clergy and the elders and professors ? I should then have some 
hopes of you. 



PUSEYISM. 

(To Lady Ashburton, 1841.) Still I can preach a little; and 
I wish you had witnessed, the other day at St. Paul's, my in- 
credible boldness in attacking the Puseyites. I told them that 
they made the Christian religion a religion of postures and cere- 
monies, of circumflexions and genuflexions, of garments and ves- 
tures, of ostentation and parade ; that they took up tithe of mint 
and cummin, and neglected the weightier matters of the law— 
justice, mercy, and the duties of life, and so forth. 

(To Lady Davy, 1842.) I have not yet discovered of what I 
am to die, but I rather believe I shall be burnt alive by the 
Puseyites. Nothing so remarkable in England as the progress of 
these foolish people. I have no conception what they mean, if it 
be not to revive every absurd ceremony, and every antiquated 
folly, which the common sense, of mankind has se1 to sleep. 
You will find at your return a fanatical Church of England, but 
pray do not let it prevent your return. We can always gather 
together, in Park Street and Green Street, a chosen few who have 
never bowed the knee to Bimmon. 



412 BLUECOAT THEORY. 

A BORE. 

{To Mrs. , Green Street, Grosvenor Square, March 5, 

1841.) My dear Mrs. : At the sight of , away fly 

gayety, ease, carelessness, happiness. Effusions are checked, faces 
are puckered up; coldness, formality, and reserve, are diffused 
over the room, and the social temperature falls down to zero. I 
could not stand it. I know you will forgive me, but my con- 
stitution is shattered, and I have not nerves for such an occur- 
rence. 



AVERSIONS AND ARGUMENTS. 

{To Mrs. , March 6, 1841.) My dear Mrs. : Did 

you never hear of persons who have an aversion to cheese ? to 
cats ? to roast hare ? Can you reason them out of it ? Can you 
write them out of it ? Would it be of any use to mention the 
names of mongers who have lived in the midst of cheese ? Would 
it advance your cause to insist upon the story of Whittington and 
his Cat? 



BLUECOAT THEORY. 

( To the Countess of Morley. No date.) Dear Lady Morley : 
Pray understand me rightly : I do not give the Bluecoat theory as 
an established fact, but as a highly probable conjecture; look at 
the circumstances. At a very early age young Quakers disappear, 
at a very early age the Coat-boys are seen ; at the age of seven- 
teen or eighteen young Quakers are again seen ; at the same age, 
the Coat-boys disappear : who has ever heard of a Coat-man ? 
The things is utterly unknown in natural history. Upon what 
other evidence does the migration of the grub into the aurelia 
rest ? After a certain number of days the grub is no more seen, 
and the aurelia flutters over his relics. That such a prominent 
fact should have escaped our naturalists is truly astonishing; I 
had long suspected it, bat was afraid to come out with a specula- 
tion so bold, and now mention it as protected and sanctioned by 
you. 

Dissection would throw great light upon the question ; and if 



QUAKER BABIES. 413 

our friend would receive two boys into his house about the 

time of their changing their coats, great service would be rendered 
to the cause. 

Our friend Lord Grey, not remarkable for his attention to nat- 
ural history, was a good deal struck with the novelty and in- 
genuity of the hypothesis. I have ascertained that the young 
Blue-coat infants are fed with drab-coloured pap, which looks very 
suspicious. More hereafter on this interesting subject. Where 
real science is to be promoted, I will make no apology to your 
Ladyship for this intrusion. 

Yours truly, Sydney Smith. 

{From the Countess of Morley. No date.) Had I received 
your letter two days since, I should have said your arguments and 
theory were perfectly convincing, and that the most obstinate skeptic 
must have yielded to them ; but I have come across a person in 
that interval who gives me information which puts us all at sea 
again. That the Bluecoat boy should be the larva of the Quaker 
in Great Britain is possible, and even probable, but we must take 
a wider view of the question ; and here, I confess, I am bewildered 
by doubts and difficulties. The Bluecoat is an indigenous animal 
— not so the Quaker ; and now be so good as to give your whole 
mind to the facts I have to communicate. I have seen and talked 
much with Sir R. Kerr Porter on this interesting subject. He 
has travelled over the whole habitable globe, and has penetrated 
with a scientific and scrutinizing eye into regions hitherto unex- 
plored by civilized man ; and yet he has never seen a Quaker 
baby. He has lived for years in Philadelphia (the national nest 
of Quakers) ; he lias roamed up and down Broadways and length- 
ways in every nook and corner of Pennsylvania; and yej lie never 
saw a Quaker baby; and what is new and most striking, never 
did lie see a Quaker lady \.\ a, situation which gave hope thai a 
Quaker baby might he seen hereafter. This is a stunning fact, 
and involving the question in such impenetrable mystery a- will, 
] fear, defy even your sagacity, acuteness, and industry, to eluci- 
date. But let US not he checked and cast down; truth is the end 

and object of our research. Let us not hate one jot of hearl and 
hope, but still bear up and steer our course righi onward. 

Yours mosl truly, F. Morley. 



414 THE OPERA. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF GAME. 

{To the Rev. R. H Barliam, London, about 1842.) Many 
thanks, my clear Sir, for your kind present of game. If there is 
a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is that of roast pheas- 
ant and bread sauce ; — barn-door fowls for dissenters, but for the 
real churchman, the thirty-nine times articled clerk — the pheas- 
ant, the pheasant !* 



ALLEN OLD AGE. 

{To Lady Holland, Combe Florey, Sept 13, 1842.) I am 
sorry to hear Allen is not well ; but the reduction of his legs is a 
pure and unmixed good; they are enormous — they are clerical! 
He has the creed of a philosopher and the legs of a clergyman ; I 
never saw such legs — at least, belonging to a layman. 

It is a bore, I admit, to be past seventy, for you are left for ex- 
ecution, and are daily expecting the death-warrant ; but, as you 
say, it is not anything very capital we quit. We are, at the close 
of life, only hurried away from stomach-aches, pains in the joints, 
from sleepless nights and unamusing days, from weakness, ugli- 
ness, and nervous tremors ; but we shall all meet again in another 

planet, cured of all our defects. will be less irritable ; 

more silent ; will assent ; Jeffrey will speak slower ; Bobus 

will be just as he is ; I shall be more respectful to the upper 
clergy ; but I shall have as lively a sense as I now have of all 
your kindness and affection for me. 



INVITATION TO a SEMIRAMIS." 

{To Lady Holland, November 6, 1842.) My dear Lady Hol- 
land : I have not the heart, when an amiable lady says, " Come to 
6 Semiramis' in my box," to decline ; but I get bolder at a distance. 
" Semiramis" would be to me pure misery. I love music very 
little — I hate acting ; I have the worst opinion of Semiramis her- 
self, and the whole thing (I can not help it) seems so childish and 
so foolish that I can not abide it. Moreover, it would be rather 
out of etiquette for a Canon of St. Paul's to go to an opera ; and 

* Memoir of Barham. 



EVERETT. 415 

where etiquette prevents me from doing things disagreeable to 
myself, I am a perfect martinet. 

All these things considered, I am sure you will not be a Semi- 
ramis to me, but let me off. 



DYING SPEECHES. 

{To Miss Berry, 1843.) I am studying the death of Louis XVX. 
Did he die heroically ? or did he struggle on the scaffold ? Was 
that struggle (for I believe there was one) for permission to 
speak? or from indignation at not being suffered to act for himself 
at the last moment, and to place himself under the axe ? Make 
this out for me, if you please, and speak of.it to me when I come 
to London. I don't believe the Abbe Edge worth's " Son of St. 
Louis, montez au del!" It seems necessary that great people 
should die with some sonorous and quotable saying. Mr. Pitt 
said something not intelligible in his last moments : G. Rose made 
it out to be, " Save my country, Heaven !" The nurse on being 
interrogated, said that he asked for barley-water. 



EDWARD EVERETT AMERICAN DEBTS. 

{To Mrs. Holland, Combe Florey, Jan. 31, 1844.) Everett, 
the American Minister, has been here at the same time with my 
eldest brother. We all liked him, and were confirmed in our good 
opinion of him. A sensible, unassuming man, always wise and 
reasonable. ********* 

[This visit appears to have called forth some comments from a 
portion of the American Press which were met by the following 
from Sydney Smith.] 

{Letter to the Editor of the Morning Chronicle.) Sir: The 
Locofoco papers in America arc, I observe, full of abuse of Mr. 
Everett, their minister, for spending a month with me at Christ- 
mas, in Somersetshire. Thai month was neither lunar nor calen- 
dar, but consisted of forty eighl hours — a lew minutes more or 
less. 

I never heard a wiser or more judicious defence than la 1 made 
to me and others of the American insolvency ; not denying the in- 



416 THE AMIABLE AMERICAN. 

justice of it — speaking of it, on the contrary, with the deepest 
feeling, but urging with great argumentative eloquence every topic 
that could be pleaded in extenuation. He made upon us the same 
impression he appears to make universally in this country ; we 
thought him (a character which the English always receive with 
affectionate regard), an amiable American, republican without 
rudeness, and accomplished without ostentation ! " If I had known 
that gentleman five years ago," said one of my guests, " I should 
have been deep in the American funds ; and as it is, I think at 
times that I see 195. or 20s. in the pound, in his face." 

However this may be, I am sure we owe to the Americans a 
debt of gratitude for sending to us such an excellent specimen of 
their productions. In diplomacy a far more important object than 
falsehood is to keep two nations in friendship. In this point, no 
nation has ever been better served than America has been served 
by Mr. Edward Everett. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, Sydney Smith. 

April, 17, 1844. 



TABLE-TALK. 417 



TABLE-TALK— ANECDOTES.* 



JEFFREY AND THE NORTH POLE. 

The reigning bore at this time in Edinburgh (at the beginning 

of the century), was ; his favourite subject, the North 

Pole. It mattered not how far south you began, you found your- 
self transported to the north pole before you could take breath ; 
no one escaped him. My father declared he should invent a slip- 
button. Jeffrey fled from him as from the plague, when possible ; 
but one day his arch-tormentor met him in a narrow lane, and 
began instantly on the north pole. Jeffrey, in despair and out of 
all patience, darted past him, exclaiming, " Damn the north pole !"* 
My father met him shortly after, boiling with indignation at Jef- 
frey's contempt of the north pole. " Oh, my dear fellow," said my 
father, " never mind ; no one minds what Jeffrey says, you know ; 
he is a privileged person ; he respects nothing, absolutely nothing. 
Why, you will scarcely believe it, but it is not more than a week 
ago that I heard him speak disrespectfully of the equator !" 



LINKS ON JEFFBEY. 

Among our rural delights al Heslington (says Lady Holland), 
was the possession of a young donkey, which had been given up 
to our tender mercies from the time of its birth, and in whose 

* Except where otherwise credited, the following anecdotes of Sydney 

Smith's conversation arc derived from the Memoir by Lady Holland. 

t "I see this anecdote," says Lady Holland, "in Mr. Moore's Memoirs 
attributed to Leslie, hut I have so often heard it told as applying to a very 
different person, that I think he was mistaken. " 

18* 



418 JEFFREY. 

education we employed a large portion of our spare time ; and a 
most accomplished donkey it became under our tuition. It would 
walk up-stairs, pick pockets, follow us in our walks like a huge 
Newfoundland dog; at the most distant sight of us in the field, 
with ears down and tail erect, it set off in full bray to meet us. 
These demonstrations on Bitty's part were met with not less affection 
on ours, and Bitty was almost considered a member of the family. 
One day, when my elder brother and myself were training our 
beloved Bitty, with a pocket-handkerchief for a bridle, and his 
head crowned with flowers, to run round our garden, who should 
arrive in the midst of our sport but Mr. Jeffrey. Finding my 
father out, he, with his usual kindness toward young people, imme- 
diately joined in our sport, and, to our infinite delight, mounted 
our donkey. He was proceeding in triumph, amidst our shouts 
of laughter, when my father and mother, in company, I believe, 
with Mr. Horner and Mr. Murray, returned from their walk, and 
beheld this scene from the garden-door. Though years and years 
have passed away since, I still remember the joy-inspiring laughter 
that burst from my father at this unexpected sight, as, advancing 
toward his old friend, with a face beaming with delight and with 
extended hands, he broke forth in the following impromptu : — 

" Witty as Horatius Flaccus, 
As great a Jacobin as Gracchus ; 
Short, though not as fat, as Bacchus, 
Hiding on a little jackass." 

These lines were afterward repeated by some one to Mr. , 



at Holland House, just before he was introduced for the first time 
to Mr. Jeffrey, and they caught his fancy to such a degree that he 
could not get them out of his head, but kept repeating them in a 
low voice all the time Mr. Jeffrey was conversing with him. 



SENSIBILITY OF CHILDHOOD. 



Once, when we were on a visit at Lord 



ting with a large party at luncheon, when our host's eldest son, a 
imQ boy of between eight and nine, burst into the room, and, run- 
ning up to his father, began a playful skirmish with him; the 
boy, half in play, half in earnest, hit his father in the face, who? 



STAGE-COACH SCENE. 419 
to carry on the joke, put up botli his hands, saying, " Oh, B , 



you have put out my eye. 5 ' In an instant the blood mounted to 
the boy's temples, he filing his little arms around his father, and 
sobbed in such a paroxysm of grief and despair, that it was some 
time before even his father's two bright eyes beaming on him with 
pleasure could convince him of the truth, and restore him to tran- 
quillity. 

When he left the room, my father, who had silently looked with 
much interest and emotion on the scene, said, " I congratulate you ; 
I guarantee that boy ; make your hearts easy ; however he may 
be tossed about the world, with those feelings, and such a heart, 
he will come out unscathed." 

The father (continues Lady Holland), one of those who consider 
their fortune but as a loan, to be employed in spreading an atmo- 
sphere of virtue and happiness around them as far as their influence 
reaches, is now no more, and this son occupies his place ; but his wid- 
owed mother the other day reminded me how true the prophecy had 
proved ; and the scene was so touching that I cannot resist giving it. 



STAGE-COACH TRAVELLING. 

In 1820, my father (writes Lady Holland) went on a visit of 
a few days to Lord Grey's ; then to Edinburgh to see Jeifrey and 
his other old friends ; and returned by Lord Lauderdale's house 
at Dunbar. Speaking of this journey, he says, "Most people 
sulk in stage-coaches, I always talk. I have had some amusing 
journeys from this habit. On one occasion, a gentleman in 
the coach with me, with whom I had been conversing for some 
time, suddenly looked out of the window as we approached 
York and said, i There is a very clever man, they say, bill a 
d — odd fellow, lives near here — Sydney Smith, I believe.' i lie 
may be a very odd fellow,' said I, taking oil' my ha1 to him 
and laughing, 'and I dare say he is; but odd as he is, he is here, 
very much at your service.' Poor man! I thought he would 
have sunk into his boots, and vanished through the bed of the 
carriage, he was bo distressed; but I thought I had better tell him 
at once, or h to say I had murdered my grand- 

mother, which L must have resented, you know. 

u On another occasion, some years later, when going to Brougham 



420 A COUNTRY DINNER. 

Hall, two raw Scotch girls got into the coach in the dark, near 
Carlisle. ' It is very disagreeable getting into a coach in the 
dark,' exclaimed one, after arranging her bandboxes ; • one can 
not see one's company.' ' Very true, ma'am, and you have a great 
loss in not seeing me, for I am a remarkably handsome man.' 
6 No, sir ! are you really ?' said both. ' Yes, and in the flower of 
my youth.' ' "What a pity !' said they. We soon passed near a 
lamp-post : they both darted forward to get a look at me. ' La, 
sir, you seem very stout.' ' Oh no, not at all, ma'am, it's only my 
great coat.' ' Where are you going, sir ?' ' To Brougham Hall.' 
'Why, you must be a very remarkable man, to be going to 
Brougham Hall.' 'I am a very remarkable man, ma'am.' At 
Penrith they got out, after having talked incessantly, and tried 
every possible means to discover who I was, exclaiming as they 
went off laughing, ' Well, it is very provoking we can't see you, 
but we'll find out who you are at the ball ; Lord Brougham always 
comes to the ball at Penrith, and we shall certainly be there, and 
shall soon discover your name.' " 



DINNER IN THE COUNTRY. 

Though it was the general habit in Yorkshire to make visits 
of two or three days at the houses in the neighborhood, yet not 
unfrequently invitations to dinner only came, and sometimes to a 
house at a considerable distance. 

" Did you ever dine out in the country ?" said my father ; " what 
misery human beings inflict on each other under the name of 

pleasure ! We went to dine last Thursday with Mr. , a 

neighbouring clergyman, a haunch of venison being the stimulus to 
the invitation. We set out at live o'clock, drove in a broiling sun 
on dusty roads three miles in our best gowns, found Squire and 
parsons assembled in a small hot room, the whole house redolent of 
frying ; talked, as is our wont, of roads, weather, and turnips ; that 
done, began to grow hungry, then serious, then impatient. At last 
a stripling, evidently caught up for the occasion, opened the door 
and beckoned our host out of the room. After some moments of 
awful suspense, he returned to us with a face of much distress, 
saying, ' the woman assisting in the kitchen had mistaken the soup 
for dirty water, and had thrown it away, so we must do without 



door. 421 

it;' we all agreed it was perhaps as well we should, under the 
circumstances. At last, to our joy, dinner was announced ; but 
oh, ye gods ! as we entered the dining-room what a gale met our 
nose ! the venison was high, the venison was uneatable, and was 
obliged to follow the soup with all speed. 

" Dinner proceeded, but our spirits flagged under these accumu- 
lated misfortunes : there was an ominous pause between the first 
and second course; we looked each other in the face — what new 
disaster awaited us ? the pause became fearful. At last the door 
burst open, and the boy rushed in, calling out aloud, ' Please, sir, 
has Betty any right to leather I ?' What human gravity could 
stand this ? Wq roared with laughter ; all took part against Betty, 
obtained the second course with some difficulty, bored each other 
the usual time, ordered our carriages, expecting our post-boys to 
be drunk, and were grateful to Providence for not permitting 
them to deposite us in a wet ditch. So much for dinners in the 
country !" 



A DOG DIFFICULTY. 

During one of his visits to London, at a dinner at Spencer 
House, the conversation turned upon dogs. " Oh," said my 
father, " one of the greatest difficulties I have had with my 
parishioners has been on the subject of dogs." " How so ?" said 
Lord Spencer. " Why, when I first went down into Yorkshire, 
there had not been a resident clergyman in my parish for a hun- 
dred and fifty years. Each fanner kept a huge mastiff-dog, 
ranging at large, and ready to make his morning meal on clergy 
or laity, as best suited his particular taste ; I never could approach 
a cottage in pursuit of my calling, but I rushed into the jaws of 
one of these shaggy monsters. I scolded, preached, and prayed, 
without avail; bo I determined to try what fear for their pockets 
might do. Forthwith appeared in the county papers a minute 
account of a trial of a farmer, at the Northampton Sessions, for 
keeping dogs unconfined ; where said farmer was not only fined 
five pound- and reprimanded by the magistrates, but sentenced to 
three months' imprisonment. The effect was wonderful, and the 
reign of Cerberus ceased in the land.*' "Thai accounts," said 
Lord Spencer, "forwhal has puzzled me and Althorp for many 



422 NIEBUHR. 

years. We never failed to attend the sessions at Northampton, 
and we never could find out how we had missed this remarkable 
dog case." 



SMALL MEN. 

An argument arose, in which my father observed how many of 
the most eminent men of the world had been diminutive in person, 
and after naming several among the ancients, he added, "Why, 

look there, at Jeffrey ; and there is my little friend , who has 

not body enough to cover his mind decently with ; his intellect is 
improperly exposed." 



LOCAL MORALITIES. 

When I took my Yorkshire servants into Somersetshire, I 
found that they thought making a drink out of apples was a tempt- 
ing of Providence, who had intended barley to be the only natural 
material of intoxication. 



A NEW ZEALAND ATTORNEY. 



There is a New Zealand attorney arrived in London, with 
6s. 8d. tattooed all over his face. 



NIEBUHR S DISCOVERIES. 

Have you heard of Niebuhr's discoveries ? All Eoman history 
reversed ; Tarquin turning out an excellent family man, and Lu- 

cretia a very doubtful character, whom Lady would not have 

visited. 



TELEMACHUS. 

How bored children are with the wisdom of Telemachus ! they 
can't think why Calypso is so fond of him. 



A LIFE. 



Yes, he has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets 
into empty wells ; and he is frittering away his age in trying to 
draw them up again. 



THE BIBLE. 423 

A REBUKE. 
At a large dinner party the death of Mr. Dugald Stewart was 
announced. The news was received with so much levity by a 
lady of rank, who sat by Sydney Smith, that he turned round and 
said, " Madam, when we are told of the death of so great a man as 
Mr. Dugald Stewart, it is usual, in civilized society, to look grave 
for at least the space of five seconds." 



BEAUTY OF THE STYLE OF THE BIBLE. 

" What is so beautiful as the style of the Bible ? what poetry 
in its language and ideas !" and taking it down from the bookcase 
behind him, he read, with his beautiful voice, and in his most im- 
pressive manner, several of his favourite passages ; among others 
I remember — "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and 
honour the face of an old man ;" and part of that most beautiful of 
Psalms, the 139th : " O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known 
me. Thou know est my downsitting and mine uprising ; thou un- 
derstandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and 
my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. . . . Whither 
shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? 
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in 
hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, 
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even there shall thy 
hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely 
the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about 
me ; yea, the darkness hideth not from thee ; but the night shineth 
as the day ; the darkness and the light are both alike to thee" — 
putting the Bible again on the shelf. 



FIREPLACES. 

Neyeb neglect your fireplaces; I have paid great attention to 

mine, and could burn you all out in a moment. Much of the 
cheerfulness of life depends upon it Who could be miserable with 
that fire? AYlia! makes a fire so pleasant is, I think, thai it is a 
live thinir in a dead room. 



ANTI-MKLAM'MOLV. 

Neveb give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit 
will encroach. I once gave a lady two-and twenty receipts against 



424 WOMEN — DRESS. 

melancholy : one was a bright lire ; another, to remember all the 
pleasant things said to and of her ; another, to keep a box of sugar- 
plums on the chimney-piece, and a kettle simmering on the hob. 



BLUE-STOCKINGS. 

Keep as much as possible on the grand and common road of 
life ; patent educations or habits seldom succeed. Depend upon 
it, men set more value on the cultivated minds than on the ac- 
complishments of women, which they are rarely able to appreciate. 
It is a common error, but it is an error, that literature unfits women 
for the every-day business of life. It is not so with men ; you see 
those of the most cultivated minds constantly devoting their time 
and attention to the most homely objects. Literature gives women 
a real and proper weight in society, but then they must use it with 
discretion ; if the stocking is blue, the petticoat must be long, as 
my friend Jeffrey says ; the want of this has furnished food for 
ridicule in all ages. 



DRESS AND BEAUTY. 

Never teach false morality. How exquisitely absurd to tell 
girls that beauty is of no value, dress of no use ! Beauty is of value ; 
her whole prospects and happiness in life may often depend upon 
a new gown or a becoming bonnet, and if she has five grains of com- 
mon sense she will find this out. The great thing; is to teach her 
their just value, and that there must be something better under the 
bonnet than a pretty face for real happiness. But never sacrifice 
truth. 



A UTILITARIAN. 



Some one, speaking of the utility of a measure, and quoting 
-'s opinion : " Yes, he is of the Utilitarian school. That man 



is so hard you might drive a broad-wheeled wagon over him, and 
it would produce no impression ; if you were to bore holes in him 
with a gimlet, I am convinced saw-dust would come out of him. 
That school treat mankind as if they were mere machines ; the 
feelings or affections never enter into their calculations. If every- 
thing is to be sacrificed to utility, why do you bury your grand- 



PICTURES. 425 

mother at all ? why don't you cut her into small pieces at once, 
and make portable soup of her ?" 



THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

Yes, it requires a long apprenticeship to speak well in the 
House of Commons. It is the most formidable ordeal in the 
world. Few men have succeeded who entered it late in life ; Jef- 
frey is perhaps the best exception. Bobus used to say that there 
was more sense and good taste in the whole House, than in any 
one individual of which it was composed. 



TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER. 

We are told, " Let not the sun go down on your wrath." This, 
of course, is best ; but, as it generally does, I would add, Never 
act or write till it has done so. This rule has saved me from many 
an act of folly. It is wonderful what a different view we take of 
the same event four-and-twenty hours after it has happened. 



LIGHT AND SHADE. 

I like pictures, without knowing anything about them ; but I 
hate coxcombry in the fine arts, as well as in anything else. I got 
into dreadful disgrace with Sir George Beaumont once, who, stand- 
ing before a picture at Bowood, exclaimed, turning to me, ^immense 
breadth of light and shade !" I innocently said, " Yes ; about an 
inch and a half." He gave me a look that ought to have killed 
me.* 



A ONE-BOOK MAN. 

Yes, it was a mistake to write any more. He was a one-book 
man. Some men have only one book in (hem ; others, a Ulnar; 

# Smith furnished bis house 1 once with :i set of daubs, and invented names 
of great masters for them : — "a beautiful Landscape by Nicholas de Falda, a 
pupil of Valdeggio, the only painting by that eminent artist." !!<• consulted 
two Royal Academicians as to hi- purchases, ami when be had Bel them con- 
sidering what opportunities were Likely to occur, added, by way of after- 
thought; "Oh, I ought to have told you that my outside price for a picture 
is thirty-five shillings." 



426 HAND-SHAKING. 

COMPOSITION. 

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every 
other word you have written ; you have no idea what vigour it 
will give your style. 



, MATHEMATICS. 

The most promising sign in a boy is, I should say, mathe- 
matics. 



FACTS AND FIGURES. 



Oh, don't tell me of facts — I never believe facts: you know 
Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures. 



HAND-SHAKING. 

On meeting a young lady who had just entered the garden, and 
shaking hands with her : ' I must, ' he said, i give you a lesson in 
shaking hands, I see. There is nothing more characteristic than 
shakes of the hand. I have classified ■ them. Lister, when he 
was here, illustrated some of them. Ask Mrs. Sydney to show 
you his sketches of them when you go in. There is the high 
official — the body erect, and a rapid, short shake, near the chin. 
There is the mortmain — the fiat hand introduced into your palm, 
and hardly conscious of its contiguity. The digital — one finger 
held out, much used by the high clergy. There is the shakus 
msticus, where your hand is seized in an iron grasp, betokening 
rude health, warm heart, and distance from the Metropolis ; but 
producing a strong sense of relief on your part when you find 
your hand released and your fingers unbroken. The next to this 
is the retentive shake — one which, beginning with vigour, pauses as 
it were to take breath, but without relinquishing its prey, and be- 
fore you are aware begins again, till you feel anxious as to the 
result, and have no shake left in you. There are other varieties, 
but this is enough for one lesson. 



A JOKE IN THE COUNTRY. 



A joke goes a great way in the country. I have known one 
last pretty well for seven years. I remember making a joke after 



SALAD. 427 

a meeting of the clergy, in Yorkshire, where there was a Rev. 
Mr. Buckle, who never spoke when I gave his health; saying, 
that he was a buckle without a tongue. Most persons within 
hearing laughed, but my next neighbour sat unmoved and sunk in 
thought. At last, a quarter of an hour after we had all done, he 
suddenly nudged me, exclaiming, " I see now what you meant, 
Mr. Smith ; you meant a joke.' " Yes," I said, " sir ; I believe I 
did." Upon which he began laughing so heartily, that I thought 
he would choke, and was obliged to pat him on the back. 



SALAD RECIPE. 

That pudding ! yes, that was the pudding Lady Holland asked 
the recipe for when she came to see us. I shook my head and 
said it could not be done, even for her ladyship. She became 
more urgent ; Mrs. Sydney was soft-hearted, and gave it. The 
glory of it almost turned my cook's head ; she has never been the 
same since. But our forte in the culinary line is our salads ; I 
pique myself on our salads. Saba always dresses them after my 
recipe. I have put it into verse. Taste it, and if you like it, 
I will give it you. I was not aware how much it had contributed 

to my reputation, till I met Lady at Bowood, who begged 

to be introduced to me, saying, she had so long wished to know 
me. I was of course highly flattered, till she added, ' For, Mr. 
Smith, I have heard so much of your recipe for salads, that I was 
most anxious to obtain it from you.' Such and so various are the 
sources of fame ! 

" To make this condiment, your poet begs 

The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs J 

Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, 

Smoothness and softness to the salad give. 

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, 

And, half-suspected, animate the whole. 

Of mordant mustard add ;i BUlgle BpOOIl, 

Distrust the condiment thai lams < () soon ; 

But d«cm it not, thou man of herbs, a fault, 
To arid a doable quantity of salt. 

Four times the BpOOU with oil from Lucca brown, 

And twice with vineger procured from town ; 
And, lastly, o'er the flavored compound I 
A magic soupcon of anchovy sauce. 



428 WINTER SALAD. 

Oh, green and glorious ! Oh, herbaceous treat ! 
'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat : 
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, 
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl ! 
Serenely full, the epicure would say, 
"Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day." 

[The above in the famous recipe as given by Lady Holland in 
her Memoir. We have before us printed on the first page of a 
letter-sheet (on the back of which is the second note to Captain 
Morgan on the American Debts previously given, p. 72), the fol- 
lowing with some variations, and as the date of the letter is 1844 
it has good pretensions to the latest edition. The affectionate 
friend solicitously adds with his own hand : " Let me beg you not 
to alter the proportions in the salad." Such are the well-known 
anxieties of salad-makers.] 

A ^Recipe for Salad. 

LAST EDITION. 

Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, 

Unwonted softness to the salad give : 

Of mordant mustard, add a single spoon, 

Distrust the condiment which bites so soon ; 

But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault, 

To add a double quantity of salt : 

Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, 

And once with vinegar, procured from town ; 

True flavour needs it, and your poet begs 

The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs ; 

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, 

And scarce suspected, animate the whole ; 

And lastly, on the flavoured compound toss, 

A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce : 

Then though green turtle fail, though venison's tough, 

And ham and turkey are not boiled enough, 

Serenely full, the epicure may say — 

" Fate cannot harm me, — I have dined to-day." 

To this is added in print : 

A Winter Salad. 

Two well boiled potatoes, passed through a sieve : a teaspoon- 
ful of Mustard ; two teaspoonfuls of salt ; one of essence of an- 
chovy ; about a quarter of a teaspoonful of very finely-chopped 
onions well bruised into the mixture, three tablespoonfuls of oil ; 



LADY CORK. 429 

one of vinegar ; the yolk of two eggs, hard boiled. Stir up the 
salad immediately before dinner, and stir it up thoroughly. 

N. B. As this salad is the result of great experience and re- 
flection, it is hoped young salad-makers will not attempt to make 
any improvements upon it. 



PARODY ON POPE. 

Have you heard my parody on Pope ? 

Why has not man a collar and a log ? 
For this plain reason — man is not a dog. 
Why is not man served up with sauce in dish ? 
For this plain reason — man is not a fish. 



TRANSIT OF A SOVEREIGN. 

By-the-by, it happened to be a charity sermon, and I considered 
it a wonderful proof of my eloquence, that it actually moved old 
Lady Cork to borrow a sovereign from Dudley, and that he actu- 
ally gave it her, though knowing he must take a long farewell of 

it. I was told afterward by Lady S that she rejoiced to see 

it had brought " iron tears down Pluto's cheek" (meaning by that 
her husband), certainly little given to the melting mood in any 



VENUS MILLINARIA. 

I once saw a dressed statue of Venus in a serious house — the 
Venus Millinaria. 

*This story is told somewhat differently in Dyce's Recollections of the 
Table-Talk of Rogers : " Lady Cork was once so moved by a charity sermon, 
that she begged me [Smith] to lend her a guinea for her contribution. I did 
so — she never repaid me and spent it on herself." Jekyll, the great wil of 
the lawyers, said at one ofliady Cork's parties where she wore an enormous 
plume, "she was exactly a shnttlecock — all cork and feathers." 

Lady Cork was the veteran of London society. Her parties to literary ce- 
lebrities were famous from the days of Dr. Johnson who visited her gather- 
ings. She was the Miss Monkton of Boswell's Johnson ; daughter of Vis- 
count Galway; married in 1786 to the Bar! of Cork. She held on among 
the London literati bravely to the last, dying in 1840, at the age of ninety- 
four. 



430 DOGS — MANNERS. 

THE VANILLE OF SOCIETY. 

Ah, you flavour everything ; you are the vanille of society. 



SEWING FOR MEN. 



I wish I could sew. I believe one reason why women are so 
much more cheerful, generally, than men, is because they can work, 

and vary more their employments. Lady used to teach her 

sons carpet-work. All men ought to learn to sew. 



DOGS. 



No, I don't like dogs ; I always expect them to go mad. A 
lady asked me once for a motto for her dog Spot. I proposed, 
" Out, damned Spot !" but she did not think it sentimental enough. 
You remember the story of the French marquise, who, when her 
pet lap-dog bit a piece out of her footman's leg, exclaimed, " Ah, 
poor little beast ! I hope it won't make him sick." I called one 

day on Mrs. , and her lap-dog flew at my leg and bit it. After 

pitying her dog, like the French marquise, she did all she could to 
comfort me, by assuring me the dog was a Dissenter, and hated 
the Church, and was brought up in a Tory family. But whether 
the bite came from madness or Dissent, I knew myself too well to 
neglect it ; and went on the instant to a surgeon and had it cut out, 
making a mem. on the way to enter that house no more. 



MANNERS. 

Manners are often too much neglected : they are most impor- 
tant to men, no less than to women. I believe the English are 
the most disagreeable people under the sun ; not so much because 
Mr. John Bull disdains to talk, as that the respected individual 
has nothing to say, and because he totally neglects manners. Look 
at a French carter ; he takes off his hat to his neighbour carter, 
and inquires after " La sante de madame," with a bow that would 
not have disgraced Sir Charles Grandison ; and I have often seen 
a French soubrette with a far better manner than an English 
duchess. Life is too short to get over a bad manner ; besides, 
manners are the shadows of virtue. 



UP-TAKERS CLEAEERS. 431 

FURNITURE OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE. 

I think no house is well fitted up in the country without people 
of all ages. There should be an old man or woman to pet ; a par- 
rot, a child, a monkey ; something, as the French say, to love and 
to despise. I have just bought a parrot, to keep my servants in 
good-humour. 



TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

The charm of London is that you are never glad or sorry for 
ten minutes together: in the country you are the one and the 
other for weeks. 



TEA AND COFFEE. 

At the tea-table : " Thank God for tea ! What would the world 
do without tea ? how did it exist ? I am glad I was not born be- 
fore tea. I can drink any quantity when I have not tasted wine ; 
otherwise I am haunted by blue-devils by day, and dragons by 
night. If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee. 
Sir James Mackintosh used to say, he believed the difference 
between one man and another was produced by the quantity of 
coffee he drank. 



v 



CLASSES OF SOCIETY. 

I have divided mankind into classses. There is the Noodle — ■ 
very numerous, but well known. The Affliction-woman — a valu- 
able member of society, generally an ancient spinster, or distant 
relation of the family, in small circumstances': the moment she 
hears of any accident or distress in the family, she sets off, packs 
up her little bag, and is immediately established there, to comfort, 
flatter, fetch, and carry. The Op-takers — a class of people who 
only see through their fingers' end-, and go through a room taking 
up and touching everything, however visible and however tender. 
The Clearera — who begin at the dish before them, and go on 
picking or tasting till it is cleared, however large the company, 
small the supply, and rare the contents. The Sheep-walkere — ■ 



432 SHAM SYDNEY SMITHS. 

those who never deviate from the beaten track, who think as their 
fathers have thought since the flood, who start from a new idea as 
they would from guilt. The Lemon-squeezers of society — people 
who act on you as a wet blanket, who see a cloud in the sunshine, 
the nails of the coffin in the ribands of the bride, predictors of evil, 
extinguishers of hope ; who, where there are two sides, see only 
the worst — people whose very look curdles the milk, and sets 
your teeth on edge. The Let-well-aloners — cousins -german to 
the Noodle, yet a variety ; people who have begun to think and to 
act, but are timid, and afraid to try their wings, and tremble at the 
sound of their own footsteps as they advance, and think it safer to 
stand still. Then the Washerwomen — very numerous, who ex- 
claim, " Well ! as sure as ever I put on my best bonnet, it is cer- 
tain to rain," etc. There are many more, but I forget them. 

Oh, yes ! there is another class, as you say ; people who are 
always treading on your gouty foot, or talking in your deaf ear, or 
asking you to give them something with your lame hand, stirring 
up your weak point, rubbing your sore, etc. 



MRS. SIDDONS. 

I never go to tragedies, my heart is too soft. There is too 
much real misery in life. But what a face she had ! The gods 
do not bestow such a face as Mrs. Siddons's on the stage more 
than once in a century. I knew her very well, and she had the 
good taste to laugh heartily at my jokes ; she was an exellent per- 
son, but she was not remarkable out of her profession, and never 
got out of tragedy even in common life. She used to stab the po- 
tatoes ; and said, " Boy, give me a knife !" as she would have said, 
" Give me the dagger !" 



SHAM SYDNEY SMITHS. 

I have heard that one of the American ministers in this country 
was so oppressed by the numbers of his countrymen applying for 
introductions, that he was obliged at last to set up sham Sydney 
Smiths and false Macaulays. But they can't have been good coun- 
terfeits ; for a most respectable American, on his return home, was 
heard describing Sydney Smith as a thin, grave, dull old fellow ; 



FRIENDSHIP. 438 

" and as to Macaulay," said lie, " I never met a more silent man in 
my life."* 



CANVAS-BACK DUCKS. 

I fully intended going to America ; but my parishioners held 
a meeting, and came to a resolution that they could not trust me 
with the canvas-back ducks ; and I felt they were right, so gave 
up the project. 



FRIENDSHIP. 

True, it is most painful not to meet the kindness and affection 
you feel you have deserved, and have a right to expect from 
others ; but it is a mistake to complain of it, for it is of no use : 
you can not extort friendship with a cocked pistol. 

* In the summer of 1844, in the list of passengers, on the arrival of the 
Great Western at New York, was advertised Sydney Smith. It created some 
paragraphing in the papers, and quite a nutter among the genuine Sydney's 
church friends. In a letter to the Countess Grey, Smith alludes to the af- 
fair: "There arrived, the other day, at New York, a Sydney Smith. A 
meeting was called, and it was proposed to tar-and-feather him j but the 
amendment was carried, that he should be invited to a public dinner. He 
turned out to be a journeyman cooper ! My informant encloses for me an in- 
vitation from the Bishop of the Diocese to come and sec him, and a proposi- 
tion that we should travel together to the Falls of Niagara." 

The author of the article in the Edinburgh Review, on Smith (July, 1&55), 
caps the " sham Sydney Smiths and false Macaulays" with the following : — 
" Sophie Arnault actually played off a similar trick on a party of Parisian line 
ladies and gentlemen who had expressed a wish to meet Rousseau. She 
dressed up a theatrical tailor who bore some likeness to the author of ' Emile,' 
and placed him next to herself at dinner, with instructions not to open his 
mouth except to eat and drink. Unluckily he opened it too often for the ad- 
mission of champagne, and began talking in a style befitting the coulisses; 
but this only added to the delusion, and the next day the Qoble faubourg rang 
with the praises of the easy sparkling pleasantry of the philosopher. Accord- 
ing to another well-authenticated anecdote, there was a crazy fellow at Edin- 
burgh, who called himself Doctor, fancied thai he had once been on the point 

of obtaining the chair of Moral Philosophy, and professed the most i xtrava- 
gant admiration for a celebrated poet. Some wag suggested that he should 

pay a visit to his idol. He did so, and stayed two days, indulging his mono- 
mania, but simultaneously gratifying his host's prodigious appetite for adula- 
tion ; and the poet uniformly spoke of him as one of the mosl intelligent and 
well-informed Scotchmen he had ever known. When this story was told to 
Sydney Smith, he offered the narrator five shillings for the exclusive right 
to it for a week. The bargain was struck, and the money paid down." 

IS 



434 PRAISE. 

THREE SEXES. 

Don't you know, as the French say, there are three sexes — 
men, women, and clergymen. 



SOCINIAN. 

Some one naming — — as not very orthodox, "Accuse a man 
of being a Socinian, and it is all over with him ; for the country 
gentlemen all think it has something to do with poaching." 



dome of st. paul's. 

- We were all assembled to look at a turtle that had been sent to 
the house of a friend, when a child of the party stooped down and 
began eagerly stroking the shell of the turtle. " Why are you 

doing that, B ?" said my father. " Oh, to please the turtle." 

" Why, child, you might as well stroke the dome of St. Paul's, to 
please the Dean and Chapter." 



praise. 



Some one observing the wonderful improvement in since 

his success ; " Ah !" he said, " praise is the best diet for us, after 
all." 



SAMARITANS. 

Yes ! you lind people ready enough to do the Samaritan, with- 
out the oil and twopence. 



HAPPINESS. 



The haunts of Happiness are varied, and rather unaccountable ; 
but I have more often seen her among little children, home fire- 
sides, and country-houses, than anywhere else; at least I think so. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in 
trowsers. 



ROGERS. 435 



PRESCOTT THE HISTORIAN. 



When Prescott comes to England, a Caspian Sea of soup 
awaits him. 



SAMUEL ROGERS. 

In 1823, having received a presentation to the Charterhouse 
from the Archbishop of York, for his second son, Wyndham, Sydney 
Smith took him there in the spring. While he was in town, Mr. 
Eogers says, " I had been ill some weeks, confined to my bed. 
Sydney Smith heard of it, found me out, sat by my bed, cheered 
me, talked to me, made me laugh more than I ever thought to 
have laughed again. The next day a bulletin was brought to my 
bedside, giving the physician's report of my case ; the following 
day the report was much worse ; the next day declaring there was 
no hope, and England would have to mourn over the loss of her 
sweetest poet ; then I died amidst weeping friends ; then came my 
funeral ; and lastly, a sketch of my character, all written by that 
pen which had the power of turning everything into sunshine and 
j°7* Sydney never forgot his friends." 

Addressing Eogers : " My dear E., if we were both in America, 
we should be tarred and feathered ; and, lovely as we are by na- 
ture, I thould be an ostrich and you an emu." 

" How is Eogers ?" " He is not very well." " Why, what is 
the matter?" " Oh, don't you know he has produced a couplet? 
When our friend is delivered of a couplet, with infinite labour and 
pain, he takes to his bed, has straw laid down, the knocker tied 
up, expects his friends to call and make inquiries, and the answer 
at the door invariably is, 'Mr. Rogers and his little couplel are as 
well as can be expected.' When he produces an Alexandrine lie 
keeps his bed a day longer." 

Sydney Smith mentioned having once half-offended Sam. 
Rogers, by recommending him, when he sal for his picture, to be 
drawn saying his prayers, with his face in his hat. 4 

* Diary of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham, Oct. 2, 1831 — in Memoir. 

The tete morte anecdotes of Rogers are numerous. That pleasant book 



436 TALLEYRAND. 

TALLEYRAND. 

One evening, at his house (in London in later life), a few friends 
had come in to tea ; among others, Lord Jeffrey, Dr. Holland, and 
his sister. Some one spoke of Talleyrand. "Oh," said Sydney, 
" Lady Holland labored incessantly to convince me that Talleyrand 
was agreeable, and was very angry because his arrival was usually 
a signal for my departure ; but, in the first place, he never spoke 
at all till he had not only devoured but digested his dinner, and as 
this was a slow process with him, it did not occur till everybody 
else was asleep, or ought to have been so ; and when he did speak 
he was so inarticulate I never could understand a word he said." 
" It was otherwise with me," said Dr. Holland ; " I never found 
much difficulty in following him." " Did not you ? why it was an 
abuse of terms to call it talking at all ; for he had not teeth, and, 
I believe, no roof to his mouth — no uvula — no larynx — no 
trachea — no epiglottis — no anything. It was not talking, it was 
gargling ; and that, by-the-by, now I think of it, must be the very 
reason why Holland understood him so much better than I did," 
turning suddenly round on him with his merry laugh. 

"Yet nobody's wit was of so high an order as Talleyrand's 
when it did come, or has so well stood the test of time. You fe- 

The Clubs of London, tells us "it was the fashion to liken the pale visage of 
the poet to all sorts of funereal things — Tristissima mortis imago I But Ward's 
(Lord Dudley) were the most felicitous resemblances. Eogers had been at 
Spa, and was telling Ward that the place was so full, that he could not so 
much as find a bed to lie in, and that he was obliged, on that account, to 
leave it. 'Dear me/ replied Ward, 'was there no room in the church- 
yard V At another time, Murray was showing him a portrait of Rogers, ob- 
serving that 'it was done to the life' 'To the death, you mean/ replied 
Ward/' Among other sallies of the same kind, was his asking Rogers 
— "Why don't you keep your hearse, Rogers'? you can well afford it." 
Eraser's Magazine, in 1830, had a severe caricature — "There is Sam. Ro- 
gers, a mortal likeness — painted to the very death." Byron's terrible lines 
are well known : — 

Nose and chin would shame a knocker ; 
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker. 

***** 

Is't a corpse stuck up for show, 
Galvanized at times to go ? 

The corpse, however, long survived all the satirists, Ward, Byron, Maginn. 



TALLEYRAND ANECDOTES. 437 

member when his friend Montrond * was taken ill, and exclaimed, 
' Mon ami, je sens les tourmens de Fenfer.' ' Quoi ! deja?' was 
his reply. And when he sat at dinner between Madame de Stael 
and Madame Recamier, the celebrated beauty, Madame de Stael, 
whose beauties were certainly not those of the person, jealous of 
his attentions to her rival, insisted upon knowing which he would 
save if they were both drowning. After seeking in vain to evade 
her, he at last turned toward her and said, with his usual shrug, 

" Ah, madame, vons savez nager" And when exclaimed, 

" Me voila entre 1'esprit et la beaute," he answered, " Oui, et sans 

posseder ni l'un ni l'autre." And of Madame , " Oui, elle est 

belle, tres-belle ; mais pour la toilette, cela commence trop tard, et 

finit trop tot." Of Lord he said, " C'est la bienveillance 

meme, mais la bienveillance la plus perturbative que j'ai jamais 
connu." To a friend of mine he said on one occasion, " Milady, 
voulez-vous me preter ce livre ?" " Oui, mais vous me le rendrez ?" 
"Oui." "Parole d'honneur ?" " Oui." "Vous en etes surf 
" Oui, oui, milady ; mais, pour vous le rendre, il faut absolument 
d'abord me le proter." 

* "I find," says Lady Holland, "that Talleyrand used to tell this story as 
having passed between Cardinal De la Roche-Guyon, a celebrated epicure, 
and his confessor/' 

Moore in his Diary (April 2, 1833) has a similar mot of Talleyrand m 
connection with the above : "On some occasion when M. very ill, had fallen 
on the floor and was grasping at it violently with his hands ' // veut absolument 
descend 're,' said T. His friend Montrond took his revenge in the style of his 
master — Madame Flamelin reproached M. de Montrond with his attachment 
to Talleyrand : ( Heavens/ he replied, 'who conld help liking him, he is so 
wicked !' " 

A few of the neat Bayings of Talleyrand, current in London society with 
the above and of a similar character, also from .Moore's Diary : — 

"At breakfast at Lord Lansdowne's, Madame Durazzo, in talking of 
poor Miss Bathursl (who was drowned at Koine), mentioned thai Talleyrand 
in reading an account of il (in which it was said that her ancle plunged in 
after her, and that M. Laval was in the greatest grief), said, *M.a\ Laval 
aussi 8' est plonge, mais dans la plus profondt douleur.' 

To some notorious reprobate (said to be Rivarol) who remarked to him, 'Je 
n'aifait qu'unt seule mechancete dans ma vu ;' Talleyrand answered, ' I -It ceUe- 
/>), quand ftnira-t-ell< V 

Of a lady who was praised for her beaucoup d'esprit: 'Out, beaucoup <Te* 
prit, beaucoup ; dlt m s' en sert jamais.'" 

Jordan, in his Autobiography has the following: — 



438 MACAULAY. 

MACAULAY. 

To take Macaulay out of literature and society, and put him in 
the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of 
London during a pestilence. 

" Oh yes ! we both talk a great deal, but I don't believe Ma- 
caulay ever did hear my voice," he exclaimed laughing. " Some- 
times, when I have told a good story, I have thought to myself, 
Poor Macaulay ! he will be very sorry some day to have missed 
hearing that." 

I always prophecied his greatness from the first moment I saw 

" When an inquisitive quidnunc who squinted, asked Talleyrand how he 
thought certain measures would go, he replied ' comme vous voyez.' 

"A council of the ministry having sat upon some question an eminent 
nobleman met him as he came from the meeting : ( Que s'est-il passe dans ce 
conseil V to which he replied, ' Trois heures V 

"In a period of rapid political change in Paris he was asked what he 
thought of it : ' Why/ he replied, ' in the morning I believe ; in the afternoon 
I change my opinion, and in the evening, I have no opinion at all/ 

When he was Minister for Foreign Affairs and there was a report in Paris 
of the death of George III., a banker, full of speculative anxieties, asked him 
if it was true. 'Some say/ he replied, 'that the King of England is dead, 
others say that he is not dead;, -but. do you wish to know my opinion?* 
' Most anxiously, Prince V ' Well, then, I believe neither ! I mention this 
in confidence to you ; but I rely on your discretion ; the slightest imprudence 
on your part would compromise me most seriously !" 

To these may be added a brace of anecdotes from the recently-published 
Journal of Thomas Raikes : — 

" A certain Vicomte de V , friend of Talleyrand, who with him fre- 
quented some distinguished soirees, where high play was encouraged, had in- 
curred some suspicions not very creditable to his honour. Detected one 
evening in a flagrant attempt to defraud his adversary, he was very uncere- 
moniously turned out of the house, with a threat, that if he ever made his 
appearance there again, he should be thrown out of the window. The next 
day he called upon M. de Talleyrand to relate his misfortune, and protest his 
innocence : ' Ma position est tres embarrassante/ said the Vicomte, ' donnez 
moi done un conseil/ ' Dame ! mon cher, je vous conseille de ne pins jouer 
qu'au rez de chaussee' (the ground floor). 

"When the Duchesse de Berri had disappeared from La Vendee in 1832 
there were reports that she had been seen in various places in France but al- 
ways disguised. Talleyrand remarked : ' Je ne sais pas si vous la trouverez 
en la Vendee, ou en Italie, ou en Hollande, mais ce qu'il y a de sur, e'est, 
que vous la trouverez en homme.' " 



LORD DUDLEY. 439 

him, then a very young and unknown man on the Northern 
Circuit. There are no limits to his knowledge, on small subjects 
as well as great ; he is like a book in breeches. 

Yes, I agree, he is certainly more agreeable since his return from 
India. His enemies might have said before (though I never did 
so) that he talked rather too much ; but now he has occasional 
flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful. 
But what is far better and more important than all this is, that I 
believe Macaulay to be incorruptible. You might lay ribbons, 
stars, garters, wealth, title, before him in vain. He has an honest 
genuine love of his country, and the world could not bribe him to 
neglect her interests. 



LORD DUDLEY. 

Oh don't read those twelve volumes till they are made into a 
consomme of two. Lord Dudley did still better; he waited till 
they blew over. 

Lord Dudley was one of the most absent men I think I ever 
met in society. One day he met me in the street, and invited me 
to meet myself. " Dine with me to-day ; dine with me, and I will 
get Sydney Smith to meet you." I admitted the temptation he 
held out to me, but said I was engaged to meet him elsewhere. 
Another time, on meeting me, he turned back, put his arm through 
mine, muttering, "I don't mind walking with him a little way ; Ml 
walk with him as far as the end of the street." As we proceeded 

together, W passed: "Thai Is the villain/' exclaimed he, 

" who helped me yesterday to asparagus, and gave me no toast." 
lie very nearly overset my gravity once in the pulpit. ii<' was 
s i 1 1 i 1 1 ir immediately under me, apparently very attentive, when 
suddenly he took up his stick, as if he had been in the House of 
Commons, and tapping on the ground with it. cried out in a low 
but very audible whisper, " Hear ! hear! hear!"* 

* There is a more famous anecdote of Lord Dudley's absence of mind. 
He was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Canning's Administration, 
when, at an important moment too, shortly before ili«- battle of NaYarmo, he 
addressed a letter intended for the French Ambassador Polignac, to tli<- Rus- 
sian Ambassador, Prince Lieven. The latter took it Cora hoax, and promptly 



440 LUTTRELL. 

LUTTRELL. 

I think it was Luttrell who used to say 's face always 

reminded him of boiled mutton and near relations. 

returned it. He remarked it was a good trick, but lie was " trop Jin," and a 
diplomatist of too high a standing to be so easily caught. Lord Dudley's 
habit of soliloquizing in company probably furnished the original of a char- 
acter in Theodore Hook's Gilbert Gurney, the East India Nabob, 'Mr. Nubley, 
who carries on polite conversations with his friends, with a sotto voce accom- 
paniment of Ms real and less complimentary opinions. Lockhart, in an 
admirable sketch of Dudley in the Quarterly Review, relates one of these 
adventures : "He had a particular dislike to be asked to give any one a lift 
in his carriage, in which he thought over the occurrences of the day, more, 
perhaps, than half the members of the Royal College of Physicians. An 
ingenious tormentor of Brookes's begged him to give a cast to a homeward 
bound, unconscious victim. It could not be refused. The unhappy pair set 
out in their chariot, and arrived, silently, near Mount street, when Lord 
Dudley muttered audibly, ' What a bore ! It would be civil to say something. 
Perhaps I had better ask him to dinner. Fll think about it.' His com- 
panion, a person of infinite fancy, and to whom Lord Dudley afterward took 
a great liking, re-muttered, after a due pause, ' What a bore ! Suppose he 
should ask me to dinner i What should I do 1 I'll think about it.' " 

Moore, in his diary, has frequent mention of Ward. He notices "his two 
voices ; squeak and bass ; seeming, as some one remarked, as if c Lord 
Dudley were conversing with Lord Ward.' Somebody who proposed a short 
walk with him, heard him mutter to himself, introspectively, "I think I may 
endure him for ten minutes." One day that he had Lord Lansdowne to 
dinner with him, Lord Dudley took the opportunity to read to himself 
Hume's History of England. 

Lord Dudley was, in his youth, at Edinburgh, in the family of Dugald 
Stewart, studied at Oxford, and entered Parliamentary life early. The 
family estate, derived from the coal and iron mines of Worcester, was enor- 
mous. Lord Dudley's income was some eighty thousand pounds a year. 
With this extraordinary wealth at command, and a line classical culture, en- 
deared, by his virtues, to the best London society, and fond of gathering its 
members about him, he passed much of his time unhappily, in consequence of an 
organic malformation of the brain, which he traced to an early neglect of 
physical training. "Melancholy marked him for her own." His "Letters" 
to his friend Copleston, the Bishop of LlandafT, published after his death, 
afford many proofs of this. 

As a speaker in Parliament, where, with a few exceptions, he was always 
on the strong conservative side, he was celebrated for his fine, studied 
speeches. Rogers burlesqued his method in an exceedingly neat, malicious 
epigram, which Byron, in conversation with Lady Blessington, pronounced 
" one of the best in the English language, with the true Greek talent of ex- 
pressing, by implication what is wished to be conveyed :" — 



SIDE-DISHES. 4-11 

Was not very disagreeable ? " Why, he was as disa- 
greeable as the occasion would permit," Luttrell said. 

Luttrell used to say, I hate the sight of monkeys, they remind 
me so of poor relations. 

Mrs. Sydney was dreadfully alarmed about her side-dishes the 
first time Luttrell paid us a visit, and grew pale as the covers 
were lifted ; but they stood the test. Luttrell tasted and praised. 
He spent a week with us, and having associated him only with 
Pall Mall, I confess I was agreeably surprised to find how pleasant 
an inmate he made of a country-house, and almost of a family 
party ; so light in hand, so willing to be pleased. Some of his 
Irish stories, too, were most amusing, and his manner of telling 
them so good. One : " Is your master at home, Paddy ?" " No^ 
your honour." " Why, I saw him go in five minutes ago." " Faith 
your honour, he's not exactly at home ; he's only there in the 
back-yard a-shooting rats with cannon, your honour, for his devar- 
sion" 

Luttrell came over for a day (writes Smith, to Lady Holland, 

" Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it ; 
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it. 

Dudley, (as Lockhart remarks), took capital revenge, in a review of Roger's 
Columbus, in the Quarterly, a specimen of cool, exhausting criticism. 
Rogers comes out of it like a cat taken, at the last gasp, from the receiver 
of an air-pump. There are several other examples of Dudley's powers as a 
reviewer, in his articles in the Quarterly, on Home Tooke, Charles James 
Fox, and Miss Edgeworth. 

Luttrell, by the way, had bis couplet on " the joke about Lord Dudley's 

speaking by heart." Moore preserves it in his Diary : — 

"In vain my affections the ladies are seeking : 
If I give up my heart, there's an cud to my speaking." 

Lady Blessington also tried an adaptation of it : — 

"The charming Mary has do mind the}' Bay; 
I prove she has — it changes every day. 

It was Lord Dudley who made the remark, when he heard of Sir Walter 
Scott's pecuniary disasters : '-Scott ruined! the author of Waverley ruined I 
Let every man to whom he has given months of delight give him a sixpence, 
and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than Rothschild." 

The Earl of Dudley died, unmarried, at the age of fifty-tWO, in 1 



442 YEAL-SOUP. 

from Combe Florey, in 1829), from whence I know not, but I 
thought not from good pastures ; at least, he had not his usual 
soup-and-pattie look. There was a forced smile upon his counte- 
nance, which seemed to indicate plain roast and boiled ; and a sort 
of apple-puddingy depression, as if he had been staying with a cler- 
gyman. 

I was at Bowood last week (says Smith in another letter about 
the same) ; the only persons there were seashore Calcott and his 
wife — two very sensible, agreeable people. Luttrell came over 
for the day ; he was very agreeable, but spoke too lightly, I 
thought, of veal-soup. I took him aside, and reasoned the matter 
with him, but in vain ; to speak the truth, "Luttrell is not steady in 
his judgments on dishes. Individual failures with him soon degen- 
erate into generic objections, till, by some fortunate accident, he 
eats himself into better opinions. A person of more calm reflec- 
tion thinks not only of what he is consuming at that moment, but 
of the soups of the same kind he has met with in a long course of 
dining, and which have gradually and justly elevated the species. 
I am perhaps making too much of this ; but the failures of a man 
of sense are always painful. 

Again, in 1843 : — 

Luttrell is staying here. Nothing can exceed the innocence of 
our conversation. It is one continued eulogy upon man-and-w r oman- 
kind. You would suppose that two Arcadian old gentlemen, after 
shearing their flocks, had agreed to spend a week together upon 
curds and cream, and to indulge in gentleness of speech and soft- 
ness of mind.* 

* LuttrelFs couplets, epigrams, puns, and parodies, his vers de societe, were 
always of the neatest. He " talks more sweetly than birds can sing," writes 
Sydney Smith. Rogers said none of the talkers whom he met in London 
society could " slide in a brilliant thing with such readiness." Luttrell wrote 
verses of the day, for the Times Newspaper. His "Letters to Julia in 
Rhyme," a third improved edition of which appeared in 1822, brought him 
to the notice of the public. It is a vehicle for the description of London 
manners and ideas. Julia is an ambitious coquette, a widow, to whom the 
epistles are addressed by a friend of her lover. The sufferings of the inamo- 
rato, and the amusements of the town, from which he is driven by the lady's 
ill-treatment, furnish the themes, which are elegantly presented in a pure 
witty strain of verse, Luttrell wrote also " Crockford House, a Rhapsody," 



A SYDNEY SMITH NOVEL. 443 

A NOVEL BY SYDNEY SMITH.* 

When Smith lost a few hundreds by the Pennsylvania Bonds, a 
publisher called on him offering to retrieve his fortunes, if he would 
get up a three-volume novel. 

in two cantos, in trochaic eight syllable catalectic. It appeared in 1827, when 
Crockford established his magnificent "hell" in James street. The moral is 
well-pointed, but the verse is feeble for the satiric demand of the occasion. 
It was accompanied by a little poem, " A Rhymer in Rome." 

Byron, as reported in the Conversations with Lady Blessington, describes 
the traits of Luttrell : "Of course," he said, "you know Luttrell. He is a 
most agreeable member of society, the best sayer of good things, and the 
most epigrammatic conversationist I ever met with. There is a terseness and 
wit mingled with fancy, in his observations, that no one else possesses, and no 
one so peculiarly understands the apropos. His Advice to Julia is pointed, 
witty, and full of character, showing in every line a knowledge of society, and 
a tact rarely met with. Then, unlike all or most wits, Luttrell is never ob- 
trusive : even the choicest bon-mots are only brought forth when perfectly ap- 
plicable, and then are given in a tone of good-breeding which enhances their 
value." 

Moore has a number of Luttrell's "felicities" in his Diary. Walking with 
him one day, the poet remarked a saying on Sharp's very dark complexion, that 
he looked as if the dye of his old trade (hat-making), had got engrained into 
his face, " Yes," said Luttrell, "darkness that may be felt." He pave this 
illustration of the English climate : " On a fine day, like looking up a chim- 
ney ; on a rainy day, like looking down it." He told a capital story of a tailor, 
who (we follow Moore's words) used to be seen attending the Greek lectures 
constantly; and when someone noticed it to him as odd, the tailor saving 
modestly, that he knew too well what became his station, to intrude himself, 
as an auditor on any of those subjects of which, from his rank in life, he 
must be supposed to be ignorant; but •"really," he added, '• at a Greek lec- 
ture, I think we are all pretty much on a par." 

Rogers pronounced Luttrell's epigram on Miss Tree, the singer, " quite a 
little fairy tale." 

"On this tree when a nightingale settles and Bings, 
The tree will return her as good as she brings." 

We are indebted to Mr. Washington Irving for the following anecdote, nut 
hitherto in print. He was walking in company with .Moon- mid Luttrell, at 
the former's suburban residence, la Butte, near Paris, when the conversation 
fell on a female aeronaut, who had not been heard of since her recent a 
Moore described her upward progress — tie- lasl seen of her she was -till as- 
cending, ascending, " Handed out," -lipped in Luttrell, " by Enoch and Elijah." 

Henry Luttrell died at his London residence, in December, 1851, in his 
eighty-first year. 

♦ This and the three following passages are from tin: Memoir of B 
Richard Harris Barham, by R. H. D. Barham, the author of the " Ingol 



444 WILD CUEATES. 

" Well, sir/' said the Rev- Sydney, after some seeming consid- 
eration, " if I do so, I can't travel out of my own line, ne sutor ul- 
tra crepidam ; I must have an archdeacon for my hero, to fall in 
love with the pew-opener, with the clerk for a confidant — tyran- 
nical interference of the churchwardens — clandestine correspond- 
ence concealed under the hassocks-— appeal to the parishioners, 
etc." 

" All that, sir," said the publisher, " I would not presume to in- 
terfere with ; I would leave it entirely to your own inventive 
genius." 

" Well, sir, I am not prepared to come to terms at present, but 
if ever I do undertake such a work you shall certainly have the 
refusal." 



THE BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND. 

On the departure of the Bishop of New Zealand for his diocese 
Smith recommended him to have regard to the minor as well as to 
the more grave duties of his station — to be given to hospitality — ■ 
and, in order" to meet the tastes of his native guests, never to be 
without a smoked little boy in the bacon-rack, and a cold clergy- 
man on the sideboard. " And as for myself," my lord, " he con- 
cluded, " all I can say is, that when your new parishioners do eat 
you, I sincerely hope you may disagree with them." 



WILD CURATES. 



Of Dean C he said his only adequate punishment would be 

to be preached to death by wild curates. 



VIRGILIAN PUN. 

Smith told me of the motto he had proposed for Bishop Bur- 
gess's arms, in allusion to his brother, the well-known fish-sauce 

projector. 

" Gravi jampridem saucia cura.* 

Legends/' whose Diary furnishes us with several choice specimens of Smith's 
pleasantry. He was a Minor Canon of St. Paul's, and of course hacj. good 
opportunity to study his friend's humour, 
* ^Eneid, iv. 



SPECIE AND SPECIES. 445 

DOUBLING THE CAPE. 

Puns are frequently provocative. One day, after dinner with 
a Nabob, he was giving us Madeira — 

" London — East India — picked — particular," 
then a second thought struck him, and he remembered that he had 
a few flasks of Constantia in the house, and he produced one. He 
gave us just a glass apiece. We became clamorous for another, 
but the old qui-hi was firm in refusal. " Well, well," said Sydney 
Smith, a man for whom I have a particular regard, " since we 
can't double the Cape, we must e'en go back to Madeira." We 
all laughed — our host most of all — and he too, luckily, had his 
joke. " Be of Good Hope, you shall double'it ;" at which we all 
laughed still more immoderately, and drank the second flask.* 



SPECIE AND SPECIES. 

Sydney Smith, preaching a charity sermon, frequently repeated 
the assertion, that, of all nations, Englishmen were most distin- 
guished for generosity and the love of their species. The collec- 
tion happened to be inferior to his expectations, and he said, that 
he had evidently made a great mistake, and that his expression 
should have been, that they were distinguished for the love of their 
specie.! 



A CONVERSATIONAL COOK. 

Moore set Sydney Smith at home in a hackney-coach after a 
pleasant dinner-party at Agar Ellis's. On his remarking " how 
well and good-humouredly the host had mixed as nil up together," 
Smith said, "That's the greal use of a good conversational cook. 
who says to his company, i I'll make a good pudding of you j it's 
no matter what you came into the bowl, you must come out a pud- 
ding.' 'Dear me,' says one of* the Ingredients, * wasn't I just now 
an egg?' but he feels tin; batter sticking to him now."; 

* Maginn's Maxims of Odoherty, Number Twenty, Blackwood's x i 
1824. 
t The World We Live in. Blackwood, June, 1837. 
t Moore's Diary, May 30, 1826. 



446 ARTICLES AND MUSES. 

A FALSE QUANTITY. 

There is a current remark attributed to him, that a false quan- 
tity at the commencement of the career of a young man intended 
for public life, was rarely got over ; and when a lady asked him 
what a false quantity was, he explained it to be in a man the same 
as a faux pas in a woman. 



A DISPUTANT.* 

He said that was so fond of contradiction, that he would 

throw up the window in the middle of the night, and contradict the 
watchman who was calling the hour. 



MEDICAL ADYICE. 



When his physician advised him to "take a walk upon an 
empty stomach," Smith asked, " Upon whose ?" 



THE ARTICLES AND THE MUSES. 

"I had a very odd dream last night," said he; "I dreamed 
that there were thirty-nine Muses and nine Articles ; and my 
head is still quite confused about them/'t 



APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 

Smith said, " The Bishop of is so like Judas, that I now 

firmly believe in the apostolical succession. 

* This and the three following are from Dyce's Recollections of the Table- 
Talk of Samuel Rogers. 

t There is a better version of this in Lady Holland's Memoir : "Now I 
mean not to drink one drop of wine to-day, and I shall be mad with spirits. 
I always am when I drink no wine. It is curious the effect a thimbleful of 
wine has upon me ; I feel as flat as 's jokes ; it destroys my understand- 
ing : I forget the number of Muses, and think them thirty-nine of course ; 
and only get myself right again by repeating the lines, and finding ' Descend, 
ye thirty-nine/ two feet too long." 



COOL OF THE EVENING. 447 



SENTENCE ON AN ALDERMAN. 



Sydney Smith was asked what penalty the Court of Aldermen 
could inflict on Don-Key for bringing them into contempt by his 
late escapade. He said, "Melted butter with his turbot for a 
twelvemonth instead of lobster-sauce."* 



BOOKED. 



When the great Nestor of our poets (Rogers) advanced as a 
great truth, at his own table, that no man became great but by get- 
ting on the shoulders of another, Sydney Smith, who was pres- 
ent, was so pleased with the remark, that his favourite expression, 
when he heard anything very good, " booked" was uttered by him 
very emphatically on this occasion. By " booked" Sydney meant 
to imply — accepted, endorsed, and to be repeated."! 



YOUTH AND FAMILIARITY.^ 

One evening, at a dinner party, he was excessively annoyed by 
the familiarity of a young fop, who constantly addressed him a* 
" Smith" — " Smith, pass the wine," and so forth. Presently the 
young gentleman stated that he had received an invitation to dine 
with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and asked the reverend canon 
" what sort of a fellow" he was. 

"A very good sort of a fellow, indeed," replied the satirist ; 
"only, let me give you a piece of advice — don't call him Howley." 

This rebuff vastly amused the company, but the object of it, be- 
ing a fool at all points, did nol see this point, and talk< <1 on in 
happy unconsciousness. Soon afterward, one of the company 
rose to depart, pleading an engagement to a soiree at Gore II" 

"Take me with you," roars young Hopeful. — " Pve the greatest 
possible desire to know Lady Blessington." 

This request was very naturally demurred to, on the ground 
that a visitor was not authorized to introduce uninvited guests. 

# Letter of Jekyll to Lady Blessington, Sept. L883. Sir, John Key, alder- 
man and mayor, a notoriety of the til 
t Town and Table Talk. Illus. Lond. News, Feb, 25, 1864. 
X This and tin- four following an- waifs and Btrays, to which we can a 

no particular credit. 



448 A VESTRY. 

" Oh !" said Sydney Smith, " never mind ; I'm sure that her 
Ladyship will be delighted to see our young friend : the weather's 
uncommonly hot, and you can say that you have brought with you 
the cool of the evening \" 

" I hope, my friend," he said, kindly, to a brilliant young man, 
who had freely exhibited his opinions to the company, on a variety 
of subjects, "that you will know as much ten years hence as you . 
do now !" 



DE. WHEWELL. 

Smith is reported to have have said of Dr. Whewell, of Cam- 
bridge, whose universality in authorship is one of the marvels of 
the time, that omniscience was his forte, and science his foible. 



TWELVE-PARSON POWER. 

Sitting by a brother clergyman at dinner, he afterward re- 
marked, that his dull neighbour had a twelve-parson power of 
conversation. 



ASSUMPTIONS. 

There are three things which every man fancies he can do — 
farm a small property, drive a gig, and write an article for a re- 
view. 



a vestry. 

At a church conference on the expediency of securing the new 
street pavement of wooden blocks, he gave it as his opinion that 
the thing might be accomplished if the vestry would lay their 
heads together. 



DUNCES. 

If men (writes Smith) are to be fools, it were better that they 
were fools in little matters than in great : dullness, turned up with 
temerity, is a livery all the worse for the facings ; and the most 
tremendous of all things is a magnanimous dunce. 



PRACTICAL JOKING. 449 

PRACTICAL JOKING.* 

On one occasion, when some London visitors were expected, he 
called in art to aid nature, and caused oranges to be tied to the 
shrubs in the drive and garden. The stratagem succeeded admir- 
ably, and great was his exultation when an unlucky urchin from 
the village was detected in the act of sucking one through a 
quill. It was as good, he said, as the birds pecking at Zeuxis' 
grapes, or the donkeys munching Jeffrey's supposed myrtles for 
thistles. Another time, on a lady's happening to hint that the 
pretty paddock would be improved by deer, he fitted his two 
donkeys with antlers, and placed them with their extraordinary 
headgear immediately in front of the windows. The effect, enhanced 
by the puzzled looks of the animals, was ludicrous in the extreme. 

But in his most frolicsome moods, he never practised what is* 
called practical joking, agreeing in opinion on this topic with the 
late Marquis of Hertford, who checked a party of ingenious 
tormentors at Sudbourn with the remark, that the human mind 
was various, and that there was no knowing how much melted 
butter a gentleman would bear in his pocket without quarreling. 
There was one practical joke, however, which Sydney admitted 
he should like to see repeated, if only as an experiment in physics 
and metaphysics. It was the one played off in (he last century 
on a Mr. O'Brien, whose bedroom windows were carefully hoarded 
up, so that not a ray of light could penetrate. When he rang his 
bell in the morning, a servant appeared, hah" dressed and yawning 
with a candle, and anxiously asked if he was ill. Ashamed of the 
fancied irregularity, the patient recomposed himself to sleep, hut 
at the end of a couple of hours rang again, and again the same 
pantomime was enacted. " Open the shutters." They were opened, 
and all without was as dark as a wolf's mouth. He was kepi in 
bed till driven to desperation by hunger, when rushing out upon 
the landing-place, he found that he had only just time to dress 
for a late dinner. 



CLERICAL A\oi.i\o. 

In an argument with a serious baronet, who objected to clerical 

sporting in the abstract, ho stood up for angling. "I give up fly- 

^This and the five following paragraphs are from an article on Sydney 

Smith in the Edinburgh, Review, July, 1855. 



450 TABLE TALK. 

fishing : it is a light, volatile, dissipated pursuit. But ground-bait, 
with a good steady float that never bobs without a bite, is an occu- 
pation for a bishop, and in no ways interferes with sermon-making." 
He once discovered some tench in a pond at Sandhill Park (a 
seat of the Lethbridges close to Combe Florey) and kept the 
secret till he had caught every one of them (an exploit requiring 
several days), when he loudly triumphed over the fisherman of 
the family. Writing to Lady Grey, he says : " his [John Grey's] 
refusal of the living of Sunbury convinces me that he is not fond 
of gudgeon-fishing. I had figured to myself, you and Lord 
Grey, and myself, engaged in that occupation upon the river 
Thames." 



DINNER-TABLE CONVERSATION. 

" Eloquence," says Bolingbroke, " must flow like a stream that is 
fed by an abundant spring, and not sprout forth a little frothy 
water on some gaudy day, and remain dry the rest of the year." 
So must humour, and Sydney Smith's was so feci ; yet it was sel- 
dom overpowering, and never exhausting, except by the prolonged 
fits of laughter which it provoked. Although in one of his letters 
already quoted he calls himself a diner-out, he had none of the 
prescriptive attributes of that now happily almost extinct tribe. 
He had no notion of talking for display. He talked because he 
could not help it ; because his spirits were excited, and his mind 
was full. He consciously or unconsciously, too, abided by Lord 
Chesterfield's rule, " Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the 
whole company ; This being one of the very few cases in which 
people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced 
that he has wherewithal to pay." His favourite maxim (copied 
from Swift) was " Take as many half-minutes as you can get, but 
never talk more than half a minute without pausing and giving 
others an opportunity to strike in." He vowed that Buchon, a 
clever and amiable man of letters, who talked on the opposite 
principle, was the identical Frenchman who murmured as he was 
anxiously watching a rival, " S'il crache ou tousse, il est perdu." 
Far from being jealous of competition, he was always anxious to 
dine in company with men who were able and entitled to hold their 
own ; and he was never pleasanter than when some guest of con- 



MEDICAL PRACTICE. 451 

genial turn of mind assisted him to keep up the ball. On the 
occasion of the first attempt to bring him and Theodore Hook 
together, the late Mr. Lockhart arrived with the information, that 
Hook was priming himself (as was his wont), at the Athenaeum 
Club, with a tumbler or two of hot punch. " Oh," exclaimed 
Sydney, " if it comes to that, let us start fair. When Mr. Hook 
is announced, announce Mr. Smith's Punch." When they did 
meet, they contracted a mutual liking, and Sydney ran on with his 
usual flow and felicity; but poor Hook had arrived at that period 
of his life when his wonderful powers required a greater amount 
of stimulants than could be decently imbibed at an ordinary Lon- 
don dinner with a clergyman. 



A SCOTCH GARDENER. 

When he stopped to give directions to his servants or labourers 
he was well worth listening to. On it being pointed out to him 
that his gardener was tearing off too many of the leaves of a vine, 
he told him to desist. The man, a Scotchman, looked unconvinced. 
" Now, understand me," he continued; "you are probably right, 
but I don't wish you to do what is right; and as it is my vine, 
and there are no moral laws for pruning, you may as well do as 1 
wish." 



medical practice. 

Sir Henry Holland's high authority is adduced in favour of 
Sydney's medical knowledge; but we have our doubts whether the 
health of either Foston or Combe Florey was improved by the 
indulgence of his hobby in this particular. A composition of blue- 
pill which he was glad to "dari into the intestines" of any luckless 
wight whom he could induce to swallow it, sometimes operated in a 
manner which he had not anticipated. One morning, at Combe 
Florey, a regular practitioner from Taunton, who had been going 
his weekly round and was considerately employed to overlook the 
serious cases, came in with rather a long face, and Btated that an 
elderly woman, who had been taking the pill during several con- 
secutive nights for the lumbago, complained that her gums \ 
sore, and he therefore advised the discontinuance of it. A Loudon 



452 ILLUSIONS. 

visitor, who had tried it once, began to titter ; and Sydney, after 
attempting a weak apology for his practice, heartily joined in the 
laugh, exclaiming : " What a story you will make , of this, when 
you next breakfast with Rogers, and how he and Luttrell will 
triumph in it 1" 



A BISHOP S COURTSHIP. 



Some one asked if the Bishop of was going to marry. 

"Perhaps he may — ■ yet how can a bishop marry? How can he 
flirt ? The most he can say is, ' I will see you in the vestry after 



TITHES. 



It is an atrocious way of paying the clergy. The custom of 
tithe in kind will seem incredible to our posterity ; no one will be- 
lieve in the ramiferous priest officiating in the cornfield. 



ILLUSIONS. 

We naturally lose illusions as we get older, like teeth ; but 
there is no Cartwright to fit a new set into our understandings. I 
have, alas ! only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of 
Canterbury. 



INDEX. 



Acknowledgment of Game, 414. 

Affectations of Knowledge, 197. 

Affection and the Thermometer, 404. 

Affections, Uses of the Evil, 246. 

Age, Benefits of Knowledge to, 152. 

Airy, G. P., Epigram on, 403. 

Allen, John, Notices of, 20, 91, 414. 

America, Articles on, 184-194. 

, Travellers in, 396. 

, Visit to, 409. 

American Debts, 415. 

Letters on, 69, 353-362. 

Angling, Clerical, 449. 

Antediluvian Authorship, 120. 

Anti-Cholera, 403. 

Anti-Melancholy, 423. 

Anti-War, 399. 

Apologue of the Village, 307. 

Apostolical Succession, 446. 

Argillaceous Immortality, 398. 

Articles, the, and the Muses, 446. 

Assumptions, 448. 

Athenaeum, London, quoted, 396. 

Aurungzebe, 240. 

Austin, Sarah, Edits Correspondence, 
10; Notice of Smith's Preaching, 98. 

Aversions and Arguments, 412. 

Ballot, the, 68. 

Banks, Sir Joseph, 172. 

Barham, R. II., Diary of, quoted, 101, 
435, 443. 

Barn-door Fowl, 133 

Barrow, Dr., Sermons, 33. 

Beach, Mr. Hick, 17; Letters of Smith 
to, 18. 

Beautiful, Incentives of the, 237; Ac- 
tion of the, 239. 

Bell, Robert, Life of Canning, quoted, 
310. 



Bentham, Jeremy, 160; Book of Fal- 
lacies, 162. 

Berkeley, Hon. G. F., 119 

Bernard, Sir Thomas, Notices of, 30, 
35. 

Bible, Beauty of the Style of, 423. 

Bishop, a Real, 375. 

Sacrifice of, on a Railroad, 350. 

Bishop's Courtship, 452. 

Bishops, Advice to, 331. 

and Patronage, 329. 

Saturday Night, 337. 

Blair, Hugh, 22. 

Blessington, Lady, Conversations, 
quoted, 443. 

Blind, the, 263. 

Bloomfield, Bishop, 65. 

Bluecoal Theory, 412. 

Blue-stockings, 424. 

Bobus Smith, sec Robert. 

Body, of the, 278. 

Bombarding the Asiatics, 410. 

Booked, 447. 

Bore, a, 412. 

Borough System, the, 31 B. 

Botany Bay, Description of, 157-1591 

Bourne, Sturges, 305. 

Breakfast, a, 409. 

Brougham, Henry, 19; Ed. Review, 
27 ; the ('nun of Chancery, 820. 

Brown, Isaac Hawkins, 302. 

Brown, Thomas, 2 1 , 27. 

Buffoonery, 231 , 

Bull's ( Iharity Subscriptions, 162, 

Bulls, Irish, 232. 

Bunch, \^. 54. 

. James Bland, 2 1. 

Burlesque, 232. 

Burning Alive on Railroads, 350. 



454 



INDEX. 



Byron, Lord, Notice of "The Exo- 
diad," 24 ; of Lady Holland, 89 ; No- 
tices of Smith in his Poems, 93 ; 436. 

Campanero, the, 168. 

Campbell, Thomas, Anecdotes of, 22, 
89 ; Lochiel, quoted, 221. 

Canning, George, 10, 160; his Para- 
sites, 301 ; Character of, 309. 

Canvas-Back Ducks, 433. 

Carlisle, Lord, Notice of Robert Smith, 
14; Notice of, 52; 

Carlyle, Thomas, 92. 

Castlereagh, Lord, 160. 

Cathedral Revenue Bill, 329. 

Catholic Church Question, 363-378; 
see Peter Plymley. 

Catholic Toleration, &c, 41-3 ; 64. 

Caucus, 185. 

Caution, in Use of Talent, 214. 

Ceylon, Inhabitants of, 111. 

Channing, Dr., Sermon preached at 
St. Paul's, 33. 

Charades, 233. 

Cheerfulness, of, 282. 

Chemistry, 135. 

Chesterfield, Lord, quoted, 450. 

Childhood, Sensibility of, 418. 

Chimney-Sweepers, 159. 

Christian Charity, 261. 

Church in- Danger, 299. 

Claphamites, the, 301. 

Classes of Society, 431. . 

Classical Education, 121-131. 

Club Life, 38. 

Cobbett, Notice of Netheravon, 18. 

Combe Elorey, Life at, 61-63. 

Common Sense for 1810, 46. 

Commons, House of, 425. 

Composition, 426. 

Conquerors, Use of, 157. 

Conversational Cook, 445. 

Conversation and Books, 212. 

Conversation, Educated, 150. 

Cool of the Evening, 447. 

Copleston, Bishop of LlandafF, Reply 
to Ed. Review, 45 ; Smith's Reply 
to, 131-136; Letters of Ward, 440. 

Cork, Lady, 429. 

Country House, 431. 

Courage in the Use of Talent, 201. 

Cranzius and Ernesti, 124, 132. 

Crashaw, Epigram of, 221. 

Crowe, Mrs., Letter to, 410. 

Crumpet's Ascent to St. Paul's, 333. 

Curates, 338, 340, 341. 

Delphine, Analysis of 113. 

Demerara, 168. 



D'Epinay, Madame, 154-156. 

De Quincey, Notice of Robert Smith, 
12. 

De Stael, Madame, Delphine, 113. 

Diary, Reflections from, 292-4. 

Dickens, Charles, Letters to, 407-9. 

Digestion and the Virtues, 404. 

Dinner in the Country, 420. 

Dinner Table Conversation, 450. 

Discussing, Habit of, 203. 

Disputant, A, 446. 

Dogs, 421, 430. 

Dome of St. Paul's, 434. 

Dort, Chronicle of, 332. 

Doubling the Cape, 445. 

Doyle, Dr., 367. 

Dress and Beauty, 424. 

Drunkenness, 289. 

Dunces, 448. 

D wight, Timothy, 187. 

Dying Speeches, 415. 

Edinburgh, Visit to, 398. 

Edinburgh Review, Early History of, 
25 ; Attack on Oxford, 45 ; Pas- 
sages from, 107-194. 

Edinburgh Society, 19. 

Edmonton, Living of, 67. 

Education, Classical, 121-131. 

Eemale, 136-154. 

Popular, 274-5. 



Elephant, Anecdote of, 243. 
Ellis, George, 309. 
Emulation, 207. 
England in an Invasion, 304. 
Erin go Bragh, 366. 
Erskine, Lord, Anecdote of, 39. 
Essays and Sketches, 278-296. 
Everett, Edward, 72; Letter on, 415. 
Pacts and Eigures, 426. 
Fagging System, 16. 
Fallacies, 283-5. 
False Quantities, 115. 
Fearon, H. B., 185. 
Female Education, 136-154. 
Fireplaces, 423. 
Foolometer, a, 337. 
Foston-le-Clay, 47-57. 
Fox, C. J., Saying of, 337. 
Fragment on the Irish Roman Catho- 
lic Church, 363-378. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 62, 315. 
Fraser's Gallery of Portraits, 94. 
Magazine cited, 119, 436. 



Frere, John Hookham, 10. 
Friendship, of, 281. 
Friendship, 433. 
Fuller, Dr. Thomas, 102, 259. 



INDEX. 



455 



Gardener, Scotch, 451. 

Gladstone, W. E., 373. 
*God save the King, 311. 

Goderich, Lord, 373. 

Good Man and a Bad Minister, 299. 

Gout, 409. 

Granby, Novel of, 176-9. 

Grant," Sir William, 395. 

Grattan, Visits Mickleham, 36. 
Character of, 161. 

Gravity and License, 95-102. 

Great Western Railway, 344. 

Green, Duff, 71 ; 359. 

Grenville, Thomas, 371. 

Grey, Earl, 61 ; Conduct of the Re- 
form Bill, 321 ; 394, 402. 

Habit, Force of, 248 ; Orbit of, 251 ; 
Superiority to, 251 ; Effect of, 253. 

Half-Measures, 285. 

Hallam, Henry, 21. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 27. 

Handshaking, 426. 

Happiness, 434. 

Happiness, Past, 248. 

Hardness of Character, 286. 

Hardships of Public Schools, 154. 

Hare, James, 81. 

Hawkesbury, Lord, 300. 

Haydon, B. R., 36; 73. 

Hay-Fever, the, 403. 

Heptarchy of the Press, 323. 

Hobbes and his Pipe, 248. 

Hodgson, Dr., 374. 

Holland House, 22, 30 ; Historical No- 
tices of, 86-88 ; Anecdotes of, 90 ; 
Dinner Party, 395. 

Holland, Lady (Saba, daughter of 
Sydney Smith), Memoir of her Fa- 
ther, 10; Birth, 30; Marriage to 
Sir Henry H., 64. 

Holland, Lord (Henry Richard Vas 
sail), Notices of, 88; Lady Holland, 
89, 103. 

Holland, Sir Henry, Notice of, 64 

Holoplexia, 258. 

Hook, Theodore, 450. 

Hope, Charles, 21. 

Honied Cattle and the Lion, 336. 

Horner, Francis, 20; Notice of Smith's 
Preaching, 25 J Notice of Lectures, 

35 j Recollections of, 387-391. 
Bowick, Lord, 306. 
Boyle, ( lharles, Poem Exodus, 101 , 

Humour, Nature of, 227-231. 

Hunt, Leigh, Notices of Holland 
House, 86. 



Illusions, 452. 

Immortality of a Book, 116. 

Individual Peculiarities and Genius, 
213. 

Inflictions on Youth, 284. 

Inglis, Sir Robert, 371. 

Insects of the Tropics, 175. 

Instinct and Talent, 241 ; Change of 
Instinct, 242. 

Irreligion and Impiety, 400. 

Irving, Edward, 402. 
Washington, Original Anec- 
dote of Luttrell, 443. 

Jameson, Mrs., Notice of Sydney 
Smith. 10 ; Character of his Wit, 85. 
to Lady Blessington, 446. 

Jeffrey, Francis, 26; Marriage, 46. 

and the North Pole, 417; 

Lines on, ib. 

Jeffrey's Analysis, 393; Hints to, ib.; 
His Adjectives, 400. 

Jekyll, J., Witticism of, 429. 

Jcnkinson, Lord Hawkesbury, 300. 

Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 102. 

Joinville, Prince de, 370. 

Joke in the Country, 426. 

Judge, Taylor, and Barber, 186. 

Kay, Annie, 50, 55. 

Key, Sir John, 446. 

King of Clubs, the, 38. 

Kinglake, Dr., 317. 

Kingsley, Rev. Charles, quoted, 262. 

Knowledge, Rewards of, 206 ; Pleas- 
ures of, 216. 

Labour and Genius, 195. 

Lamb, Charles, 97. 

Landseer, Sir Thomas, Anecdote, 102. 

Langford, YV., Anniversary Sermon, 
108. 

Lapdogs, 430. 

Law, Cheapness of, in America, 186. 

Letters, Passages from, 392-416. 

Lewis, Frankland, 324. 

Levden, John, 21 . 

Leyden's Sonnel on the Sabbath, 238. 
Licensing of A.le-1 [oases, 1 79- 1 5 
Life of a Parent, 392. 
Light and Shade, 425. 

Lister, T. 1L. 177- 

Literature of America, 1 87 
Local English Morals, 156. 
Local Moralities, 422. 
Lockhart, J. G., 450. 
Locking-in on Railways, 344- 352 
Longevity and Wisdom, 243. 
Lucretius, ({noted, 390. 



456 



INDEX. 



Luttrell, H., Smith's Notices of, 440 ; 
Epigram by, 441 ; Witticisms of, 
443 ; Account of, ib. 

Lynch, Judge, 193. 

Lyndhurst, Lord, -321. 

— and Lady, 52, 60. 

Macaulay, T. B., 43 ; Tribute to Hol- 
land House, 91. 

, an Illustration from 



Smith, 120. 



Sayings of Sydney 



Smith on, 438-9. 
Mackenzie, Henry, 22. 
Mackintosh, Sir iEneas, 82. 
, Sir James, Character 



and 



Anecdotes of, 379-386. 

, Memoirs, quoted, 38. 

Malavs, the, 112. 

Malthus, T. R., 401. 

Manners, 430. 

Mathematics, 426. 

Maxims, 394. 

of Life, 292-4. 

Medical Advice, 446. 

Statesmanship, 312. 

Practice of Sydney Smith, 

451. 

Melbourne, Lord, Character of, 334. 

Methodism, Articles on, 119. 

Microcosm, the, 10. 

Military Glory, 187. 

Modern Changes, 295. 

Monk, Dr., Bishop of Gloucester, 65, 
341. 

Montrand and Talleyrand, 437. 

Moore, Thomas, Sydney Smith's Me- 
moir, 10; Notice of Robert Smith, 
13 ; Anecdote of Newton's Studio, 
75 ; Anecdotes of Smith, 84 98 ; of 
Holland House, 90 ; Poetical Com- 
pliment, 93 ; Letter to, 401 ; Diary, 
quoted, 437, 445. 

Moral Philosophy — Passages from 
Lectures, 195-255. 

Morgan, Capt. E. E., Correspondent 
of Smith, 71-2; Portrait of Smith, 
75. 

Morley, Countess of, 413. 

Murrav, John A. (Lord Murray), 21, 
27. 

Musse Etonenses, 11. 

Napier, Sir Charles, History quoted, 
313. 

New Song to an Old Tune, 70. 

Newton, Gilbert Stuart, Portrait of 
Smith, 75. 

New Zealand Attorney, 422. 



New Zealand, Bishop of, 444. 

Nice Person, a, 285. ^ 

Niebuhr's Discoveries, 422. 

Noah, M. M., Anecdote of, 191. 

Noctes Ambrosiange, 94. 

Noodledom, 143. 

Noodle's Oration, 164. 

No-Popery Outcry, 183-4. 

Notes and* Queries, cited, 316. 

Novel by Sydney Smith, 443. 

Occupation, of, 279. 

O'Connell, 326, 365, 369. 

Old Age to be Passed in the City, 

404, 414 
Olier, Miss, Birth and Character, 9 ; 

Mother of Sydney Smith, 15. 
One-Book Man, 425. 
Opera, Invitation to, 409, 414. 
Oratorio, an, 399. 

Oxford UniversityEducation, 121-136. 
visited, 392. 



Paris visited by Smith, 58-60. 
Parishioners, Advice to, 287. 
Parody, 232. 

of Milton, 405. 



Parr, Dr., Tributes to Robert Smith, 

13. 
, Spital Sermon, 107 ; Philo- 

patris, 120. 
Partington, Mrs., 64, 315. 
Passions, the, 253. 
Paying in Turbot, 394 
Peel, Sir Robert, Letter to, 352, 370. 
Pennsylvania, Public Debt, 353. 
Perceval, Spencer, 297, 299, 300, 302, 

310, 311. 
Percival, R., Account of Ceylon, 111. 
Persecutions, Catholic and Protestant, 

298. 
Peter Plymley, Passages from, 297- 

313. 
Petition of Sydney Smith to Congress, 

353. 
Philips, Sir George, Notice of, 73. 
Pictures, Smith's Purchase of, 425. 
Pilpay, Fable from, 360. 
Playfair, John, 22. 
Plymley Letters, 40, 297-313. 
Pope, Parody on, 429. 
Porson's Review of the Sovereign, 

24 ; Epigram, ib. 
Portrait of Sydney Smith, 404. 
Practical Joking, 448. 
Praise, 434. 

Prancing Indenture, 108. 
Preferment at Court, 401. 
Prescott, W. H., 435. 



INDEX. 



457 



Private Cellars and Public Houses, 
182. 

Professional Education, 121-131. 

Ptochogonv, a, 339. 

Puns, 85, 124. 

Public Eye, the, 330. 

Public Houses and Drinking-, 179. 

Public Schools, 154. 

Puseyism, 411. 

Pybus, Catherine Amelia, svife of 
Smith, 23. 
Charles Small, 23. 

Pye, Henry James, 24. 

Quantity, False, a, 446. 

Paikes, T., Journal quoted, 438. 

Railway, Letters on, 344-352. 

Randolph, John, on the Ballot, 68. 

Reading, Art of, 208. 

■ in Age, 402. 

Rebuke by Sydney Smith, 423. 

Redesdale, Lord, 306. 

Reform Speeches, 314-328. 

Religious Liberty, 190. 

Riches, on, 267. 

Ridicule, Superiority to, 226; Use of 
119. 

Rogers, Henry, Notice of §mith/s 
Lectures, 37. 

, Samuel, Notice of Robert 

Smith, 14; Anecdote of Lord Hol- 
land, 16: of Lady Holland, 89; 
Dining-room Anecdote, 101 and 
Note; 394; Witticisms of Smith, 
435; Anecdotes of, il>. ; Epigram 
on Ward, 441. 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, Tribute to, 273. 

Round Man in the Round Hole, 206. 

Rousseau and D'Epinay, 153. 

Rumfonl, Count, 30, 35. 

Russell, Lord John, Smith's Descrip- 
tion of, 65. 

and the Bishops, 

335. 

Salad Recipe, 427-8. 

Bamaritans, 434. 

Sarcasm, 226. 

[ice, ( 'laims of, 129. 

Scotland and the Catholic Question, 
303. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 305, 395. 

Seduction. [ 

Sentence on an Alderman, 447. 
Selwyn, George, 309. 
Semiramis, Invitation to, 414. 
Sermons, of, 25G. 

Passages from, 25G-27 7. 

Servants, Treatment of, 262. 

20 



Sewing for Men, 430. 

Seymour, Lord Webb, 20. 

Sham Sydney Smiths, 432-3. 

Sharp, Richard, Notice of, 35. 

, Mot by Luttrell. 

She is not Weil, 3G4. 

Shillaber, B. P., Mrs. Partington, 317. 

Shyness, 245. 

Siddons, Mrs., 432. 

Sign of the State in Difficulty, 394. 

Simon of Gloucester, 333, 343. 

Simond, Louis, Notice of. 46. 

Simonides, Danae, 11. 

Singleton, Archdeacon, Letters to, 64- 
66, 329-343. 

Skepticism, 205. 

Slavery, American, 194. 

Sloth of Cruelty and Ignorance, 311. 

Sloth, the 173/ 

Small Men, 422. 

Smith, Cecil, 14. 

Smith, Courtenay, 14, 72. 

Smith, Douglas, at Westminster, 16; 
Death, 61 ; Letter to, 397. 

Smith, Maria, 15. 

Smith, Robert (father of Sydney), 9, 
15. 

Smith, Robert (Bobus) at Eton, 10; 
at Cambridge, 11; Verses "Ex 
Simonide" id. ; Marriage, ib. ; in 
India, 12; in the ]l<>n-r of Com- 
mons, ib. ; death, ib. ; tributes to, 13. 

Smith, Sir Sidney,' 9, 59, 382. 

Smith, Sydney, Association of the 
Names, 9. 

Smith, Sydney : Birth and Family, 9; 
School-Days, 15: in Normandy, 17 ; 
at ( Ixfordj 17 ; enters the Church, 
ib. ; at N'ctlicravoii, ii>. : ar Edin- 
burgh, 18 ; Projects the Edinburgh 
Review, 25 ; Sermons at Edinbi 
29 ; in London, •*;<» ; ( Ihapel Preach- 
ing, 30-2; Character oi Sermons, 
:>:\ ; ( Jharge of Plagiarism, i!> ; 
tare- en Moral Philosophy . .'! ! ; 
Plymley Letters, 40 : in Yorkshire, 
43 ; ( !ontrovers) with ( Oxford 
Justice of tli«' Peace, 

Canon i ■ i ( k>mbe 

Florey, 61-3 ; Reform Sp< 
Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, 
64-66 : the Ballot, I 
American Debts, 69-72; Death, 
7 \ ; Personal Appearance, 
Characteristics, 75-79 ; Intellectual 
Habits, 79-81 ; Wit and Humour, 



458 



INDEX. 



81-85 ; Letters, 86 ; Contemporary 

Notices, 93-4 ; License and Gravity 

Considered, 95-102; Summary, 104, 
Smoking, Habit of, 250. 
S my the, George Sydney, 9= 
S my the, Sir Thomas, 9, 
Socinian, 434. 

Soldiers and Theology, 300. 
Solvent States, 361. 
Somerville, Lord, 305. 
Sonnet on the Sabbath, 238. 
Sovereign, the, a poem, 23. 
Sovereign, Transit of, 429. 
Specie and Species, 445. 
Spirits, Consumption of, 182. 
St. Antony, 410. 
Stage-Coach Travelling, 419. 
Stephen, James, 302. 
Stewart, Dugald, 21 ; Death of, 423. 
Study, Habits of, 209. 
Styles, Rev. John, 119. 
Sublimity, 235. 
Supplies for the Mind, 195. 
Susan Hopley, 410. 
Swing, Mr., Letter to, 291. 
Table-Taik of Sydney Smith, 417, 452. 
Talfourd, Serjeant, 336. 
Talleyrand, Witticism on Robert 

Smith, 14 ; Madame De Stael, 115 ; 

Anecdotes of, 436. 
Tarring and Feathering, 362 f 
Taste, Certainty of, 236. 
Taunton, Reform Speeches, 314, 
Taxes, 187-8. 
Tea and Coffee, 43 L 
Telemachus, 422. 
Temperance, 400. 
Thackeray, W. M., Allusion to Lord 

Carlisle, 52. 
Thomson, John, 21, 27. 
Thomson, Thomas, 27. 
Three Sexes. 434. 
Tickeli, Richard, 309 5 
Ticknor, George, 72. 
Tithes, 452. 

Town and Country, 405, 431. 
Travel, Books of, and Travellers, 109, 

156. 



Triumph of Civilized Life, 393. 

Truth, 199, 264. 
jTuckerman, H. T., Article in N. A. 

Review, 92. 
j Twelve Parson Power, 448. 
1 Twenty-Four Hours after, 425. 
I Twiss, Horace, 324. 
j Understanding, Conduct of the, 195. 
i Union of America, 192. 
! Utilitarian, a, 424. 
| Vampire, the, 174. 
| Vanilie of Society, 430. 

Vellum and Plumpkin, 319. 
j Venus Millinaria, 429. 
\ Versailles Railway Accident, 344. 
; Vestry, a, 448. 
: Victoria, Sermon on the Accession of, 

274. 
| Village, the, an Apologue, 307. 
! Virgilian Pun, 444. 

War, 276, 399. 
I War and Credit, 358. 
| Ward (Lord Dudley), Witticisms on 
Rogers, 436; Anecdotes of, 439; 
Account of, 440. 
| Waste of Life, 422. 

Waterton, Charles, Wanderings in 
South America, 166-176. 

Webster, Daniel, Correspondence with 
Smith, 406, 434. 

Well-informed Women, 392. 

Wellington, Duke of, 324, 327. 

Wet Clothes, 288. 

Whewell, Dr., 35, 448, 

Whip-poor- Will, 171. 

Whishaw, John, 395. 

Who Reads an American Book? 188. 

Wild Curates, 444. 

William IV. and the Reform Bill, 
322, 328. 

Wisdom of our Ancestors, 162. 

Wit, Essentials of, 217-224; a Culti- 
vable Faculty, 224 ; Dangers and 
Advantages of, 233. 

Words, Abuse of, 199. 

Wourali Poison, 168. 

Youth and Familiarity, 447, 



<2$ 



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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 



